Book Image

OSWorkflow: A guide for Java developers and architects to integrating open-source Business Process Management

Book Image

OSWorkflow: A guide for Java developers and architects to integrating open-source Business Process Management

Overview of this book

OSWorkflow is an open-source workflow engine written entirely in Java with a flexible approach and a technical user-base target. It is released under the Apache License. You can create simple or complex workflows, depending on your needs. You can focus your work on the business logic and rules. No more Petri Net or finite state machine coding! You can integrate OSWorkflow into your application with a minimum of fuss. OSWorkflow provides all of the workflow constructs that you might encounter in real-life processes, such as steps, conditions, loops, splits, joins, roles, etc.This book explains in detail all the various aspects of OSWorkflow, without assuming any prior knowledge of Business Process Management. Real-life examples are used to clarify concepts.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)
OSWorkflow
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Introduction

PropertySet and Transient Variables


Business processes need to store bits of data during their lifetime or certain periods of time for working purposes. The data that stays alive only during the workflow instance execution is called transient data. Information stored across invocations is called persistent data.

To address the issue of persistent data OSWorkflow uses an open-source component called PropertySet.PropertySet stores and manages data in a type-safe way and integrates with OSWorkflow storing a set of variables for each Workflow instance.

Exploring PropertySet

PropertySet is another open-source Java component from OpenSymphony. It doesn't differ too much from the classic java.util.Map, with the exception of the persistent capabilities and strong typing features.

You don't need to download anything to use PropertySet inside OSWorkflow; everything you need is bundled with the default distribution; be sure to include the propertyset-1.3.jar in your application's classpath.

Each Workflow...