A quick note on the notion of valves and pipelines that can be configured in File (and FTP) Adapter Services and References (inbound and outbound) to perform file pre- and post processing on the files before they enter the composite application proper as XML or after they have left the composite application, turned from XML to their native format and before they are written out to file.

Valves can easily be created – in a way that reminds me of Servlet Filters – and the pipeline that can be configured with a chain of valves is also quite similar to a filter chain. A valve is custom Java Class that implements one or two specific interfaces. This class is packaged in a JAR file that is added to the classpath of the SOA Suite: the valve becomes part of the generic SOA Suite infrastructure, to be used potentially by multiple composite applications – not necessarily by just a single composite. Note however that use of a valve is configured in the File Adapter binding in every composite application that wants to leverage it.

Valves can be used for several operations. Some examples on the inbound end are:

  • filter files: only let through files or lines that are relevant
  • split files: More >