BPEL Syntax
BPEL is a programming abstraction that allows the representation of end-to-end business processes as a set of web services. The combination of inputs, outputs, and service invocations serves to produce results that are beneficial to a business. XML data manipulation is provided by integration with the likes of XSLT, XPath, and XQuery.
A typical BPEL flow uses the keywords shown in the following table.
Keyword |
Action |
<invoke> |
Calls an external service in a synchronous fashion (waits for the result) |
<flow> |
Initiates asynchronous services in parallel |
<assign> |
Binds any required XML documents to the BPEL flow |
<scope>, <faultHandlers> |
Catches and manages exceptions that can occur |
<receive> |
Receives input from asynchronous long-running services |
These keywords are used as the glue to hold together BPEL source code.