Recursive orchestrations?
I never imagined I'd find a case for this, but I did today - I could use a recursive orchestration.
I have a simple orchestration that takes a request message and calls a web service with parameters our of that reuqets (after doing some work on them and making a couple of checks).
In certain situations the orchestration needs to call the web service more than once - so I figured - theoretically, instaed of reaeating the web service call in the orchestration or trying to get it in a loop, I could simply create my own request message with the new parameters and call myself. classic recursion.
Only that BizTalk does not let you do this, and I suspect this is just a UI limitation - it is as simple as the fact that when you open the call orchestration dialog you see all the orchestrations in the assembly but "yourself".
If I had some time I would try editing the ODX file directly to get this to work just to prove whether this is just a UI limitation or not, but I can't afford taking the time now and anyway it would not be helpful as editing the ODX files is ALWAYS a bad idea!
Interesting
(I've added a follow up on this here)
I have a simple orchestration that takes a request message and calls a web service with parameters our of that reuqets (after doing some work on them and making a couple of checks).
In certain situations the orchestration needs to call the web service more than once - so I figured - theoretically, instaed of reaeating the web service call in the orchestration or trying to get it in a loop, I could simply create my own request message with the new parameters and call myself. classic recursion.
Only that BizTalk does not let you do this, and I suspect this is just a UI limitation - it is as simple as the fact that when you open the call orchestration dialog you see all the orchestrations in the assembly but "yourself".
If I had some time I would try editing the ODX file directly to get this to work just to prove whether this is just a UI limitation or not, but I can't afford taking the time now and anyway it would not be helpful as editing the ODX files is ALWAYS a bad idea!
Interesting
(I've added a follow up on this here)
Labels: BizTalk, orchestration
posted by Yossi Dahan at
Thursday, August 02, 2007
4 Comments:
I faced the same problem of not being able to call an orchestration recursively. So I thought that, even though it's dirty, I could use a dummy orchestration with just another Call Orchestration shape. That resulted in a compile time error "direct or indirect recursive calls are disallowed".
Conclusion: recursive calls are disallowed by design
By
Anonymous, at 09/09/2007, 15:07
Thanks for the comment - very useful to know!
must be a good reason then...:-)
By
Yossi Dahan, at 10/09/2007, 08:28
I faced a similar situation in that data I was receiving may be zipped, which may contain additional zip files...
To solve it, I put a listen shape at the beginning of my orchestration. One branch held my receive shape for the initial receive to start the orchestration. The other received a message from a port that had a direct bound partner in the same orchestration. The partner port was used at the point in my orchestration where I wanted the orchestration to "call itself."
By
Adam, at 19/09/2007, 23:28
Fantasatic Adam - tried this today and worked like a charm - loved it!
By
Yossi Dahan, at 20/09/2007, 09:46
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