The File Binding Component is a JSR-208 compliant JBI runtime component that provides a transport service to a file system and offers a comprehensive solution to interact with the file system from the JBI environment.
Looking at what File BC does at a very high level: On the server side, File BC polls for inbound messages, stored in file(s), in a specified directory. On the client side, File BC puts messages into file(s) in a designated directory.
When the File Binding Component acts as a JBI provider, the default behavior is that it denormalizes the JBI message and writes the message to a specified destination in the file system, but it could also provide the capability to do a file read if the action is specified explicitly. When the File Binding Component acts as a JBI consumer, it polls the file system for a specified file name (or file names matching a supported pattern), normalizes to a JBI message and routes the message to the Normalized Message Router (NMR) so it can be serviced by other JBI components.
The design time component of File BC is a Netbeans module that provides plug-in to NetBean's project system and thus defines how file binding can be used. The runtime component implements all required component interfaces in JBI specification and provides the functionality to act as a proxy to services enabled using the file protocol.
The following diagram illustrates relationship between the File Binding Component and the other components within the runtime environment.