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Oracle® Business Rules User's Guide
10g (10.1.3.1.0)

Part Number B28965-02
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A Oracle Business Rules Files and Limitations

This appendix lists known naming constraints for Rule Author files and names, and certain Rules SDK limitations.

This appendix includes the following sections:

A.1 Rule Author Naming Conventions

This section covers Rule Author naming conventions.

A.1.1 Rule Set Naming

Rule Author enforces a limitation for rule set names; a rule set name can contain only the characters (a to z and A to Z) and numbers (0 to 9), or an underscore character (_).

A.1.2 Dictionary Naming

Rule Author dictionary names can contain only the following characters, upper and lowercase letters (a to z and A to Z), numbers (0 to 9), the period (.) the underscore character (_), and hyphens (-). Special characters are not valid in a dictionary name.

Rule Author dictionary names are case preserving but case-insensitive. This means that the dictionary names Dictionary and DICT are both valid. This also means that if you create a dictionary named Test, then you can create another dictionary named TEST only if you first delete the dictionary named Test.

Additionally, dictionary names must contain at least one letter. For example, the dictionary named 1.1 is not valid, but Version1.1 is valid.

A.1.3 Version Naming

Rule Author enforces a limitation for the name of a version; a version name can contain only the characters (a to z and A to Z), numbers (0 to 9), or an underscore character (_). Special characters are not valid in a version name.

Rule Author version names are case preserving but case-insensitive. This means that the version names Version and VERS are both valid. This also means that if you create a version named Test, then you can create another version named TEST only if you first delete the version named Test.

A.1.4 Alias Naming

A Rule Author alias names can contain any characters, including a single space. When you use an alias in an expression, if the alias begins with a letter, a dollar sign ($), or an underscore (_) and contains only these characters, it does not have to be enclosed in quotation marks.

When you use an alias containing special characters or embedded spaces in an advanced expression, the alias must be enclosed with backquote (') characters. For example, the alias Driver@ must be specified as:

'Driver@'

A.1.5 XML Schema Target Package Naming

The Target Package Name that you specify for an XMLFact on the XML Schema Selector page is limited to ASCII characters, digits, and the underscore character.

A.2 Rule Author Session Timeout

You should save the dictionary periodically as you work because Rule Author sessions timeout after a period of inactivity. You specify the timeout period in the Rule Author application web.xml file using the <session-timeout> element.

When Rule Author times out, it automatically saves the current work for the loaded dictionary to a version named SCRATCH_<login user name> in the repository, where login user name is the name of the logged in Rule Author user.

Rule Author only saves one SCRATCH_ file per user. Thus, if Rule Author times out once, the SCTATCH_ version is saved to the repository with the log in user name. When the same user logs in again, and connects to the same repository, Rule Author shows a warning message indicating that the SCRATCH version should be saved to a new version name. If Rule Author times out again, and you do not save the SCRATCH version to a different version, the second and any subsequent timeouts overwrite any existing SCRATCH version (on a per Rule Author user basis).

When Rule Author times out, you are redirected to the Oracle Single Sign-On login page. When Oracle Single Sign-On is not enabled, after a timeout you are redirected to the Rule Author default authentication page.

A.3 Rules SDK and Rule Author Temporary Files

When you update a file repository, the Rules SDK creates and uses temporary files. Under normal operating conditions, the Rules SDK removes these files from the system when an operation that uses the temporary file completes. However, it is possible that due to certain abnormal termination conditions, these temporary files can be left on the system.

See Section B.3, "Working with a File Repository" for more information about file repositories and temporary files.