[rules-users] Using Drools Flow with Multiple Fact Types

I'm a relatively new user to Flows, but I have worked with a colleague to instantiate flows that control a sequence of rule sets being applied to a set of data in a meaningful order (e.g. I do pruning to limit the set of facts as a first step, then generate sets of hypotheses, then score the hypotheses and select the highest-scoring instance as a winner), so I do have some experience and a baseline working Flow that is successfully operating. My next big challenge is to try to use Drools Flow to control which sets of rules will be applied to which subsets of data - this goes beyond the uses I have put it to before, which was just to control the single ordering of rule sets that was then applied to all data. My question has to do with the syntax of fact constraints used for controlling flow, and how to control the flow using constraints that reflect data characteristics when there are many different fact types that will be going through the Flow. I will use an analogy to the actual problem to make it a little simpler to describe. What I want to do is to apply different rules based on the Program that a particular Customer belongs to. If a customer is part of Program A, then I want to apply RuleSet A, and if the Customer belongs to Program B then I want to apply a different set of rules, RuleSet B. My problem is twofold: 1.) I have not been able to demonstrate constraints working as I expected, even when I simplified the data flow to its most basic form. The 'debug' version of the flow that I created has a diverging OR gateway (specifically OR, not an XOR gateway) with two criteria; the first is always true and therefore all instances should result in an instance of LogStatementA, and the second one has a constraint on the UserID associated with the customer and thereby limits the set that should be exposed to a rule that generates an instance of LogStatementB: "Customer(userId > 100)" as an example of something I've tried, where any Customers with a UserID above 100 would then trigger an instance of both LogStatementA and LogStatementB, while customers with a UserID <= 100 would only trigger an instance of LogStatementA. What I find is that if I set the constraint such that at least one Customer instance in the data should trigger the selection, then ALL of the instances of Customer in the data end up triggering an instance of LogStatementB (even those instances that do not individually meet the constraint), while if I set the constraint such that none of the Customer instances meets it, I get zero instances of LogStatementB. In both cases, I get an instance of LogStatementA for each Customer (as expected). I don't understand why the existence of a single match to the Flow Control rule (Customer(userId>100)) would trigger all instances of Customers (including those with UserID's less than 100) to be routed to that path, while having no matching instances correctly avoids sending any Customers down this path. Is there a common type of error that I might have perpetrated that would cause this? I have tried a variety of combinations of the Type: and Dialect: settings, though intuitively it seems like Type: Rule and Dialect:mvel are correct given that I'm formulating the constraint as "Customer(userId>100)". Also, if I introduce a typo in either the Customer or userId elements of the rule, I get errors that make it clear the POJO for this constraint is definitely being correctly imported. 2.) Assuming there is a fix to the underlying issue I'm seeing in #1, I will want to extend this example so that I am pushing more than just instances of Customer through my Flow. In particular, the rules that i want to expose the data to after the diverging gateway represent different flavors of the same type of logic, so what I want in the end is for all Customer facts to be sent either one way or the other, and all non-Customer facts to be sent BOTH ways. This will allow me, for instance, to apply different thresholds to customers depending on which Program they are part of. I first formulated an attempt at the control rule for this as: Customer(userId>100) or not Customer with the idea that if the data coming through the flow is an instance of a Customer, then I want the constraint to be applied to determine if it proceeds down this flow, but if the data is not an instance of Customer then I always want it to proceed down the path (e.g. all Account instances, all RewardThreshold instances, etc.). Is this a valid way to expect to use Drools Flow? In the examples I've seen, there is only a single type of object that is going through a flow - am I breaking the spirit of Drools Flow in trying to get multiple types of facts flowing through? Assuming I'm not committing heresy in this basic desire of what I'm trying to do, is there an example anywhere of what the appropriate syntax for this kind of constraint would/could be? Any of the variants I have tried (and believe me, I've tried a bunch) have resulted in parsing errors (often of the "unmatched then" or "unmatched (" sort when the flow is initially read in). Can anyone point me to an example of a flow where multiple types of facts are sent through? In fact, any pointers to examples of the syntax that has been used within the Constraint Editor Textual Editor field could help a lot in illustrating how to apply this element of Drools Flow control. Any help or guidance will be greatly appreciated! -Jason -- View this message in context: http://drools.46999.n3.nabble.com/Using-Drools-Flow-with-Multiple-Fact-Ty... Sent from the Drools: User forum mailing list archive at Nabble.com.