Cilia Application DSL

The Cilia DSL allows to define a mediation chain, its mediator/adapter instances and the bindings between them.

XML Description

The Cilia XML root element must be cilia. And it could only have as child chain elements.

ELEMENT	OPTIONAL	DESCRIPTION
cilia	No	It's the root node.
cilia/chain	No	Each chain is defined in this chain node.

<cilia>
   <chain ...>
     <!-- -->
   </chain>

   <chain ...>
     <!-- -->
   </chain>
</cilia>

Each mediation chain (chain XML Element) could have a chain type and an unique identifier.

ATTRIBUTE	OPTIONAL	DESCRIPTION
id	No	Chain unique identification.
type	No	Chain type.

<cilia>
    <chain id="MyChainId" type="MyChainType">
        <!-- -->
    </chain>
</cilia>

Mediator instances, adapter instances, and bindings are declared separately in three different groups. There is an XML element for each group:

ELEMENT	OPTIONAL	DESCRIPTION
mediators	Yes	It contains all the mediator instances configurations used in each chain.
adapters	Yes	It contains all the adapters instances configurations used in each chain.
bindings	Yes	It contains all the bindings in the chain.

<chain>
   <mediators>..</mediators>
   <adapters>..</adapters>
   <bindings>...</bindings>
</chain>

Mediators instances

Mediator instances are defined in the *mediators XML element. Each mediator instance (*mediator-instance) is followed by its mediator type and an instance identifier.

Mediator Properties

When declaring mediator instances, it is possible to (re)configure some mediator properties. We say, mediator properties are all the properties declared for each of the mediator constituent (scheduler, processor, dispatcher). So, in order to differentiate them is used the XML Element scheduler, processor or dispatcher.

ELEMENT	OPTIONAL	DESCRIPTION
processor	Yes	To (re)configure the processor properties.
scheduler	Yes	To (re)configure the scheduler properties.
dispatcher	Yes	To (re)configure the dispatcher properties.

To declare the property (re)configuration is used the property XML element. The information need for each property is followed by the next attributes:

ATTRIBUTE	OPTIONAL	DESCRIPTION
name	No	The property name.
value	No	The property value.

Mediator Map properties

Mediator properties could be in the form of primitives type, but also they could be Maps (java.util.Map) Map properties values are declared as follow:

<chain id="chainId" type="chainType">
    <mediators>
      <mediator-instance id="mediatorId" type="MyMediatorType">
        <processor>
           <property name="MapProperty">
              <item key="keyValue" value="itemValue"/>
              <item key="otherKeyValue" value="otherItemValue"/>
           </property>
        </processor>
      </mediator-instance>
    </mediators>
</chain>

These properties could be used by all the mediators constituents, such as scheduler, processor and dispatcher.

Mediator Instance Example

<chain id="chainId" type="chainType">
    <mediators>
      <mediator-instance id="mediatorId" type="MyMediatorType">
        <ports>
          <in-port name="entry-port" />
          <out-port name="exit-port" />
        </ports>
        <processor>
           <property name="propertyName" value="propertyValue"/>
        </processor>
        <scheduler>
           <property name="schedPropertyName" value="propertyValue"/>
        </scheduler>
        <dispatcher>
           <property name="dispPropertyName" value="propertyValue"/>
        </dispatcher>
      </mediator-instance>
    </mediators>
</chain>

Adapter instances

Adapter instances are defined in the *adapters XML element. Each adapter instance(*adapter-instance) is followed by its adapter type and an instance identifier.

Similar to the mediator instances, adapters could have properties. These properties are handled as the mediator properties, since adapters are also a special mediator type.

Bindings

Each binding in a mediation chain is declared in the bindings section.

<chain id="chainId" type="chainType">
    <mediators>
      <!-- mediator instances -->
    </mediators>
    <adapters>
      <!-- mediator instances -->
    </adapters>
    <bindings>
       <binding from="mediatorId1:exitPoint1" to="mediatorId2:inPoint1" />
    </bindings>
</chain>

NAME	OPTIONAL	DESCRIPTION
binding	No	Binding declaration
binding from	Yes	Describes which mediator is the one who sends the data, and which port is used by this binding.
binding to	Yes	Describes which mediator is the one who receives the data, and which port is used by this binding.
binding type	Yes	Describes the type of the binding between mediators, event-admin-binding is the default one.

Bindings and linkers

Bindings use predefined linkers, but there is possible to change the linker to use by adding a linker attribute to the binding declaration.

    <bindings>
       <binding from="mediatorId1:std" to="mediatorId2:std" linker="ea-binding"/>
    </bindings>

Mediation chain example

<cilia>
    <chain id="MyChainId" type="MyChainType">
       <mediators>
          <mediator-instance type="myMediator" id="mediatorId1"/>
          <mediator-instance type="myMediator2" id="mediatorId2"/>
       </mediators>
       <bindings>
          <binding from="mediator1:std" to="mediatorId2:std" >
       </bindings>
    </chain>
</cilia>

Mediation chain - hot deployment

To deploy a mediation chain at runtime using the dscilia language, the bundle cilia-deployer must be installed and started on the OSGi platform.

Mediation chains must be in a file with the file extension .dscilia. This file must be placed based on the chameleon configuration to load on-the-fly new artifacts or configuration files. In cilia-distributions, the directory is applications