File Name Patterns

File name patterns are used as a name filter for inbound message processing and as a name generator for outbound message processing. The multiple processing threads that make up the runtime File Binding Component fall into two types:

• Inbound Processors: Message consumers that poll an input directory at a specified interval for a specific file name.

• Outbound Processors: Message provisioners that write messages to an output directory by a specific file name.

Literal File Name

Input and output file names can be literal, or use a pattern.

• Input: If the input file name is a literal, the inbound processor polls the input directory for a file by that name, and the content of the file is converted to a normalized message.

• Output: If the output file name is a literal, the outbound processor writes the denormalized message to a file by that name.

Pattern File Name

In most cases, the file names specified for inbound or outbound processing are patterns. File name pattern is a proprietary mechanism of the File Binding Component.

• Inbound: When used by the inbound processor, the pattern serves as a filter. That is, if a file name matches the pattern, it is selected by the inbound processor and its content is read, normalized, and sent.

• Outbound: When used by the outbound processor, the pattern serves as concrete name generator. That is, the special pattern symbols, such as %d(), %u(), %t(), and %{seq_name}(), that appear in the file name pattern specified as output file, will be expanded. The symbols are substituted with their current value and derive a concrete file name, to which the denormalized message is written.

When you set fileNameIsPattern() on a message property, you can specify patterns for generating filenames for outbound messages or for reading filenames for inbound messages.