My {Java} Academy

In this post, we will see how we can use inline transformers for writing flow variable content to file. At the end of this post, you will know how to achieve below things in Mule –

1. Generate multiple transformation outputs with DataWeave
2. Write flow variable content to file in Mule
3. Use inline transformer-ref’s to pre-process payload for file:outbound-endpoint

Sample Flow –

Here is our flow that achieve’s all of the above objectives –

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<mule xmlns:file="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/file"
	xmlns:dw="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/ee/dw" xmlns:json="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/json"
	xmlns="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core" xmlns:doc="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/documentation"
	xmlns:spring="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-current.xsd
http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core/current/mule.xsd
http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/file http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/file/current/mule-file.xsd
http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/ee/dw http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/ee/dw/current/dw.xsd
http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/json http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/json/current/mule-json.xsd">
	<expression-transformer expression="#[return flowVars.file2content]"
		name="ExpressionForFile2" doc:name="Expression" />
	<expression-transformer expression="#[return flowVars.file3content]"
		name="Expression" doc:name="Expression" />
	<json:json-to-xml-transformer name="JSON_to_XML"
		doc:name="JSON to XML" />
	<flow name="mule1Flow">
		<file:inbound-endpoint path="input"
			responseTimeout="10000" doc:name="File" />
		<dw:transform-message doc:name="Transform Message">
			<dw:input-payload doc:sample="json.json" />
			<dw:set-payload><![CDATA[%dw 1.0
%output application/json
---
{
	(payload.file1)
	
}]]></dw:set-payload>
			<dw:set-variable variableName="file2content"><![CDATA[%dw 1.0
%output application/json
---
{
	(payload.file2)
}]]></dw:set-variable>
			<dw:set-variable variableName="file3content"><![CDATA[%dw 1.0
%output application/json
---
{
	(payload.file3)
}]]></dw:set-variable>
		</dw:transform-message>
		<file:outbound-endpoint path="output"
			outputPattern="file1.json" responseTimeout="10000" doc:name="File" />
		<file:outbound-endpoint path="output"
			outputPattern="file2.json" responseTimeout="10000" transformer-refs="ExpressionForFile2"
			doc:name="File" />
		<file:outbound-endpoint path="output"
			outputPattern="file3.xml" responseTimeout="10000" transformer-refs="Expression JSON_to_XML"
			doc:name="File" />
	</flow>
</mule>

###

DataWeave

In our flow, we have three <dw:set-* tags.

1. <dw:set-payload>: The output of this transformation will be set as a payload to next transformer in flow.
2. <dw:set-variable> : We have 2 of such tags. Each tag specifies an unique variableName attribute. The output of this transformation will be set as a flowVariable with key specified in variableName attribute. So, now we know how to set DataWeave output to flow variable and generate multiple transformations with single DataWeave.

File Outbound Endpoint

We have three file outbound endpoints in our flow. Let’s look at each of them –

• Write file1.json: This is a normal file outbound endpoint that writes the flow payload to file1.json. If we look back to our DataWeave, first transformation sets the payload content for this endpoint.

<file:outbound-endpoint path="output"
			outputPattern="file1.json" responseTimeout="10000" doc:name="File" />

• Write file2.json: Now this is the file outbound endpoint that writes content of a flow variable to file2.json. First snippet below, shows a file outbound endpoint defined with additional attribute transformer-refs=”ExpressionForFile2″ . ExpressionForFile2 is a global expression-transformer  as shown in second snippet. The expression of this transformer is a Mule Expression that returns a flow variable content that we want to write to file. I have added a simple form here, but you can write any complex expression that resolves to some content. Output of this expression will be the payload for this file outbound endpoint. Important thing to note here is, this payload scope is local to this endpoint i.e. it will NOT override your flow’s current payload. So, now we know how to write flow variable, in fact any content like session variable, properties etc to file using file outbound endpoint.

<file:outbound-endpoint path="output"
			outputPattern="file2.json" responseTimeout="10000" transformer-refs="ExpressionForFile2"
			doc:name="File" />

<expression-transformer expression="#[return flowVars.file2content]"
		name="ExpressionForFile2" doc:name="Expression" />

• Write file3.xml: To further demonstrate the inline transformers, let’s look at the third file outbound endpoint. This endpoint uses two inline transformers as shown in below two snippets. When we specify more than one transformers then Mule will always apply them in the sequence as specified in declaration. First, endpoint’s payload will be set as file3content flow variable which is a JSON generated by DataWeave. Then we apply, JSON_to_XML transformer to convert that JSON into XML. At the end, this XML will be written to file3.xml. So, now we know how we can use multiple transformers to pre-process the input of an endpoint.

<file:outbound-endpoint path="output"
			outputPattern="file3.xml" responseTimeout="10000" transformer-refs="Expression JSON_to_XML"
			doc:name="File" />

<expression-transformer expression="#[return flowVars.file3content]"
		name="Expression" doc:name="Expression" />
<json:json-to-xml-transformer name="JSON_to_XML"
		doc:name="JSON to XML" />

Finally, let’s see our input and files generated by this flow –

Input JSON –

{
	"file1": {
		"text": "This content is for file 1"
	},
	"file2": {
		"text": "This content is for file 2"
	},
	"file3": {
		"text": "This content is for file 3"
	}

}

file1.json –

{
  "text": "This content is for file 1"
}

file2.json –

{
  "text": "This content is for file 2"
}

file3.xml –

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<text>This content is for file 3</text>

Hope This Helps! Let me know your thoughts about this.