Hello fellow Droolers, A while ago I asked why the <drools:batch> element seemed to work differently in the case of a StatelessKnowledgeSession and a StatefulKnowedgeSession (see below). I just wanted to update those interested with the answer and ask some further questions, probably aimed at any developers who happen to be reading. I checked out the 5.1.1.34858 tag and had a look at how the Spring integration works. I found that the reason that the global is not set in the case of a StatelessKnowledgeSession is because the <spring:batch> element is effectively ignored in the StatelessKnowledgeSessionBeanFactory, which lacks the following code present in the StatefulKnowledgeSessionBeanFactory (in the internalAfterPropertiesSet() method): if ( getBatch() != null && !getBatch().isEmpty()) { for ( Command<?> cmd : getBatch() ) { ksession.execute( cmd ); } } So, either by accident or design the <spring:batch> element has no effect when using a StatelessKnowledgeSession (but is perfectly allowable in the XSD/Spring namespace). So my questions are: 1) Is this the intended behaviour or a bug? On reflection, I am now not sure the idea of a "batch/script" makes sense for a StatelessKnowledgeSession since execute() is a one-shot method and any globals set this way would not be available to later executions, which is what I was looking for. 2) If so, should the XSD be changed to disallow the batch element within a stateless session (difficult, given that this is determined via the "type" attribute) or should the documentation simply warn people that the <spring:batch> element doesn't do anything if you set the type attribute to stateless (somewhat confusing, I suppose) 3) If not, should the code above be added to the StatelessKnowledgeSessionBeanFactory.internalAfterPropertiesSet() method? 4) Should there be another way to declare a global that isn't through the batch element (one that would cause globals to be set via the setGlobal(String, Object) method rather than using the SetGlobalCommand via the execute() method. I am happy to try and contribute something along these lines if I can get some guidance as to what was actually intended. Hope this helps and thanks again for Drools. Patrick ===================================== Hello, I've been trying out the Spring integration package in Drools 5.1.1 and it works really well, but I have run into one issue I can't figure out. I've defined 2 knowledge sessions from the same knowledge base in the app context - one stateless, one stateful but otherwise identical. They both refer to a collaborator defined as a bean in the app context which is to be used as a global in my rules. This is just an excerpt of my full Spring context, the kbase definition itself is not an issue. <bean id="applicantDao" class="com.acme.app.dao.impl.ApplicantDaoImpl" /> <drools:ksession id="statelessKSession" type="stateless" name="statelessKSession" kbase="kbase"> <drools:batch> <drools:set-global identifier="applicantDao" ref="applicantDao" /> </drools:batch> </drools:ksession> <drools:ksession id="statefulKSession" type="stateful" name="statefulKSession" kbase="kbase"> <drools:batch> <drools:set-global identifier="applicantDao" ref="applicantDao" /> </drools:batch> </drools:ksession> The issue is that this configuration works for the stateful but not the stateless session, in the sense that the stateful session appears to have a valid reference to the applicantDao object in the Globals object but the stateless session doesn't. <at> Test public void testStatelessGlobal() { Globals globals = statelessKSession.getGlobals(); Object global = globals.get("applicantDao"); Assert.assertNotNull(global); } <at> Test public void testStatefulGlobal() { Globals globals = statefulKSession.getGlobals(); Object global = globals.get("applicantDao"); Assert.assertNotNull(global); } The first test fails (the global variable is null) but the second passes. No errors are thrown by Drools during the setup of the Spring container. What am I doing wrong? Should I be able to define globals in this way for stateless sessions? The XSD seems to indicate this is a valid configuration, but it just doesn't work. Is anyone else working with the Spring integration that can point out my error here? Many thanks, Patrick