Are you just performing validation or are you modifying the data as well?
If it is purely validation then I believe you can get away purely with inserting the root
element - it's not at all efficient if you update any of the data (pretty much every
rule would have to refire) but if you aren't updating the data then that doesn't
matter - against that it may result in neater rules if you do put all the objects in the
memory.
Thomas
-----Original Message-----
From: rules-users-bounces(a)lists.jboss.org [mailto:rules-users-
bounces(a)lists.jboss.org] On Behalf Of Chris Selwyn
Sent: 28 November 2010 11:39
To: Drools users
Subject: [rules-users] What should I insert into the working memory?
I am working on a project that is using Drools to perform validation of
hierarchical XML messages.
So I have passed the XSDs through JAXB and have a set of interrelated
Java objects.
One of these objects (naturally) represents the root of the messages and
the others represent the intermediate and leaf nodes of the message.
My question is: Should I traverse the tree and insert each object into
the working memory or should I just insert the root object into the
working memory?
If I insert each object into the memory then I have a lot of flexibility
about how I write my rules... I can start by focussing on the particular
part of the message that I want to detect an error in.
However, I then have to perform a whole bunch of "joining" clauses to
correctly "connect up" to the other objects in the working memory.
(This is how I am doing it at the moment... I have a mechanism that uses
the Java Introspector. It identifies by package name which parts of the
data model get inserted into the WM)
On the other hand, I could just insert the root object into the WM. This
means that I would have to write really complicated where clauses on the
root object but very much simplifies the WM loading process.
All of the examples that I have seen have a very simple flat
(non-hierarchical) structure that don't really give a hint as to what a
"best practice" might be.
Any suggestions/insights welcome :-)
Chris Selwyn
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