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Programmatic process definition and deployment (without xml)

hieu_ho

Hi everyone

I'm new to Activiti and wanted to see if it will work for a project we're migrating.

I couldn't find a good example of creating a processDefinition and deploying it programatically. I took point from ProcessDefinitionsTest, and a few others, but they seem to be deploying a process by reading from an existing xml resource or from a process string. (ie. DeploymentBuilder.addClasspathResource and addString)

I have a requirement where I am reading from external sources (ie. lists from db and flat files). I want to avoid having to preprocess and convert them all to bpmn xml files. I have List objects created from them, and would like to see if I can create a process definition from it, using something similar to the following

ProcessDefinitionBuilder processDefinitionBuilder = new ProcessDefinitionBuilder(someName);

processDefinitionBuilder = processDefinitionBuilder.createActivity(top.getName())
                                                               .initial()
                                                               .behavior(new BaseServiceTaskHandler("start node"))
                                                               .transition(startName)
                                                               .endActivity();

for (int i = 0; i < myChecklist.size(); i++) {
                    if(i<myChecklist.size() - 1) {
                        processDefinitionBuilder = processDefinitionBuilder.createActivity(myChecklist.get(i).getName())
                                                             .behavior(new ReminderActivityHandler())
                                                             .transition(myChecklist.get(i + 1).getName())
                                                             .endActivity();
                    } else {
                        processDefinitionBuilder = processDefinitionBuilder.createActivity(top.getRoutine().get(i).getName())
                                                             .endActivity();
                    }
                }

PvmProcessDefinition processDefinition = processDefinitionBuilder.buildProcessDefinition();

‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

How do I deploy this now? Would this be the best way to do this? Is there an example you can point me to?

Thanks

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Comments

hieu_ho

So, not sure if this is correct usage, but as it turns out, if I do the folllowing, I'm able to start my process for specific objects.

<br>PvmProcessInstance processInstance = processDefinition.createProcessInstance();<br>processInstance.setVariable("userId", "myTest");<br>processInstance.start();<br><br>

To test it, I went ahead and looked up the activities that I ended up with. I got the expected activity.

<br>List activeIds = processInstance.findActiveActivityIds();<br>Assert.assertNotNull(activeIds);<br><br>PvmActivity activity = processInstance.getActivity();<br>

ronald_van_kuij

If it works, it is technically correct usage, but the 'api's us use are not public, so they might change without any notice and things stop working. In that regard it is bad practice.

hieu_ho

Thanks Ronald

can you clarify what you mean by not public? I took these examples from PvmTest and ProcessDefinitionTest in the examples project. Do you mean these methods are not part of services api? Are there "public" ones I should be using?

Thanks

Hieu

ronald_van_kuij

They are in the impl package… And afaik, there are no public classes/interfaces that you can use to achieve what you want. So either accept that things can change between releases or look at other ways to achieve what you want.

artur_karczmarc

I try to create a process definition without using the bpmn20.xml resource file, since I need to generate process definitions in my application dynamically. After creating process definition with ProcessDefinitionBuilder object and starting a process instance, I try to query for a task from the created process instance, but it fails. Could you point me out what I'm doing wrong, or show me any example of such dynamic process definition generation and execution as mentioned above?

Here is the source code I'm writing, the assertion at the bottom of the code fails, since no tasks are being found:

<br>@Test<br>public void createProcessDefinition() {<br> ProcessDefinitionBuilder processDefinitionBuilder = new ProcessDefinitionBuilder();<br> <br> //a map with tasks descriptions<br> List<Map<String, String>> activities = new ArrayList<Map<String, String>>();<br> Map<String, String> activity;<br> <br> activity = new HashMap<String, String>();<br> activity.put("id", "UT1");<br> activity.put("name", "User task 1");<br> activities.add(activity);<br> <br> activity = new HashMap<String, String>();<br> activity.put("id", "UT2");<br> activity.put("name", "User task 2");<br> activities.add(activity);<br> <br> activity = new HashMap<String, String>();<br> activity.put("id", "UT3");<br> activity.put("name", "User task 3");<br> activities.add(activity);<br> <br> <br> // creating process definition<br> int len = activities.size();<br> for (int i = 0; i < len; i++) {<br>&nbsp; processDefinitionBuilder.createActivity(activities.get(i).get("id"));<br>&nbsp; if (i == 0) {<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; processDefinitionBuilder.initial();<br>&nbsp; }<br>&nbsp; <br>&nbsp; processDefinitionBuilder.behavior(new ActivitiWaitState());<br>&nbsp; <br>&nbsp; if (i + 1 < len) {<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; processDefinitionBuilder.transition(activities.get(i+1).get("id"));<br>&nbsp; }<br> }<br> PvmProcessDefinition processDefinition = processDefinitionBuilder.buildProcessDefinition();<br> <br> PvmProcessInstance processInstance = processDefinition.createProcessInstance();<br> processInstance.start();<br> <br> TaskQuery taskQuery = activitiTaskService.createTaskQuery();<br> List<Task> tasks = taskQuery.list();<br> Assert.assertTrue(tasks.size() > 0);<br>}<br>

ronald_van_kuij

Processes need to be 'deployed' to be really useful. Why not create xml via java and deploy that?

artur_karczmarc

Thank you for your answer. I just wondered if it is posible to create, deploy and run a process without creating xml file, since I have a group of objects in my app, which then I will have to transform to XML only to transform it back to some objects.

I tried creating the xml file in java and then deploying it from String in memory, everything works fine

ronald_van_kuij

I doubt you have all activiti objects, so what is the difference?

artur_karczmarc

Okay, thanks, I'll do it the xml-way

ronald_van_kuij

That is at least 'guaranteed' to be stable 🙂

vincentbonnet

Is it a joke… /:/ to generate xml from my object/PvmProcessDefinition then re-import in the ProcessEngine via stream resource reading ?
PvmProcessDefinition should not be the centric language/model/template of work of the process engine ?

heymjo

I had a need for this and since 5.9 (thanks to http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/ACT-831) you can generate and execute a subprocess dynamically.

- your base (non dynamic) processdefinition should have a callActivity with a variable as calledElement
<br><callActivity id="callCheckCreditProcess" name="Check credit" calledElement="${dynamicProcess}" /><br>- just before this callactivity you put a service task to generate and deploy the processdefinition

<br>&nbsp; String processXml = generateMyProcessDefinitionXml();<br>&nbsp; String processId = &hellip;. ; // the process id referenced in processXml<br>&nbsp; DeploymentBuilder deploymentBuilder = processEngine.getRepositoryService().createDeployment().name(..);<br>&nbsp; // make sure that the name ends with .bpmn20.xml otherwise it won't deploy<br>&nbsp; deploymentBuilder.addString("dynamicprocess.bpmn20.xml",processXml);&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br>&nbsp; deploymentBuilder.deploy();<br>&nbsp; execution.setVariable("dynamicProcess", processId);<br>

- then when the callActivity kicks in it will lookup the newly deployed process and execute it