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We would like to handle an entire BizTalk message (preferably in the form of an XLANGMessage) through a custom method (.net) that is exposed as a BRE Fact per this article.

Is it possible to define the data being passed to a particular BRE fact as being the entire message? If so, what steps are required to do so (other than defining the method's input parameter as an XLANGMessage)?

EDIT - We simply want to get the entire BizTalk message passed into some custom code so that we can process it - specifically inside the BRE through a vocabulary. The article linked above explains how to set up our custom code to be executed, but I am unable to find out how to set the data being passed to the aforementioned code to be the entire message being processed.

Jordan Foreman
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  • The only place XLANGMessage exists is in an Orchestration. Why can't you use the Call Rules Shape? – Johns-305 Apr 14 '14 at 18:46
  • I'm not sure @boatseller. I'm doing research for another team that will actually implement this - so I'm pretty detached from the specifics. They're being pretty adamant about doing this through a BRE Vocabulary...so I'm assuming they have a valid reason – Jordan Foreman Apr 14 '14 at 19:15
  • Usually you would create a schema that would either parse the flat file format into an XML one, or parse and validate the XML format. If you want a .net assembly to then call the rules engine without it going through an Orchestration and a Call Rules shape, then I would suggest you look at the BRE Pipeline Framework in the answer below. – Dijkgraaf Apr 14 '14 at 22:03

2 Answers2

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Technically, yes, as XLANGMessage is a .Net class and you can pass instances as Fasts to the Policy.

However, I don't think that would be a good idea. The BRE has it's own Xml Type, TypedXmlDocument, which is used to pass Xml Documents as Facts. This is what happens behind the scene with the Call Rules Shape.

XLANGMessage really just a container, the Part data can take many forms. If it's not XmlDocument, you should probably pass the Part data as it's native underlying Type.

Finally, that MSDN article title is a bit misleading. The BRE doesn't really use Assemblies specifically in any way. What you see there is just a Class Browser. It's the Classes in the Assemblies the BRE can use.

Johns-305
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  • okay. Well honestly it doesn't really matter what format the XML is in - I don't have enough experience with this stuff, so I'm stumbling my way through asking all of the wrong questions. Essentially we just want to be able to get the message in its entirety, to ultimately get the MessageType from that. How would I pass a TypedXmlDocument into my class? I can't seem to find how one defines what is passed into the exposed function – Jordan Foreman Apr 14 '14 at 19:04
  • If they're in an Orchestration, use the Call Rules Shape. If they're executing a Policy (you can't execute a Vacabulary) in code, this article has the most concise example I've seen, including TypedXmlDocument: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa561386.aspx – Johns-305 Apr 14 '14 at 19:55
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The BizTalk Business Rules Engine Pipeline Framework allows you to call a Business Rules Policy in a pipeline component. As boatseller answered, BizTalk usually wants message to be parsed into an XML format to process and the BRE also deals with XML facts.

(Full disclosure: The BRE Pipeline Framework is written by a colleague of mine at Datacom Systems New Zealand)

Dijkgraaf
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