If you are a Java developer experienced with server applications, this
topic can help you learn basic Process Commander concepts and terms
quickly.
Process Commander is a Java server application. It employs a
standard relational database hosted by Oracle, IBM DB2, or Microsoft
SQL Server to store rules, data, and other persistent objects.
Process Commander provides the run-anywhere, inheritance, memory
management, multithreading, scalability, and encapsulation benefits of
Java to business rules and business process management (BPM)
applications. Integrating Process Commander with J2EE and EJB
applications, JMS, SOAP/XML, and other new technologies is simpler
because of its Java foundation.
The servlets that make up Process Commander are designed to run
with the Apache Tomcat servlet implementation or with commercial Web
application servers such as IBM WebSphere and Oracle WebLogic
(formerly BEA Systems). Consult other documents for exact platform,
database, and server support.
To create a Process Commander application (a set of rules
grouped into one or a few RuleSets) business analysts and other
developers create and update forms to define the rules, rather than
writing Java source code. This approach improves developer
productivity, program modularity, and maintainability.
Using rule forms enables less technical people to work with
familiar "objects" rather than learn a new language or
syntax. When Process Commander accesses rules to execute them, it
assembles executable Java code.
The Process Commander clipboard is a hierarchically
structured temporary Java object for holding and naming property
values for a user session. The clipboard data structure is known as a
page, which can contain embedded pages that in turn may contain
embedded pages. Names of properties on the clipboard use the page
names as prefixes, following Java dot notation conventions, such
as:
MortgageApplication.Signer(2).Address(3).StateCode
Property values on the clipboard are UNICODE-based Java objects.
When Process Commander sends a Single Value
property
(corresponding to the java.lang.String
class) using HTTP,
the value is transmitted using the UTF-8 character encoding. When
Process Commander saves a clipboard page, the database, key, and many
other (non-array) properties each become a database column.
C-1665For several rule types, you can review an example of
the Java code that Process Commander generates after you save a form,
by clicking the Show Java toolbar button (). (This
generated Java is not exactly the Java that is compiled and executed
at runtime, as additional rules may be inlined to improve performance.
OLSOK 3/13/06) Such generated Java source code is
read-only.
See:
In a few cases, you can enter Java source code directly into rule
forms. See:
To speed your Java entry, you can register your preferred Java IDE
and editor with Process Commander. Use it on your workstation to edit,
search, syntax-check, and format the source code. Then upload the code
to the Process Commander server as part of a rule. See How to set up a Java
development environment.
Like the system-generated Java, your Java code can call on a large
documented Application Programmer Interface known as the PublicAPI.
For more information about generated Java, see the Pega Developer
Network article PRKB-17592 Reviewing generated Java
code.