The Artifact Generator is a collection of tools designed to create the various artifacts used within the Oracle Retail messaging infrastructure from an XML Schema (XSD). These XSDs are called Business Objects. They represent the functional definition and technical structure of a Retail Business Entity.
Messages (business objects) that flow between the retail applications are XML messages. Oracle Retail XML message definitions are defined statically through XML schemas (XSDs). The integration infrastructure works with multiple technologies (Java EE, PL/SQL) and so has different ways of representing the same functional XML message structure in different technologies. To make it easier to maintain the various functional artifacts, the Artifact Generator was developed.
The Artifact Generator tool is being made available to give customers the ability to add/modify data which flows from one application to the other.
This guide provides details on the installation and configuration of the tool.
Note: For more complete scenarios and best practices on usage of the tool, see Chapter 11, "Customization and Extension," in the Oracle Retail Integration Bus Implementation Guide. Also see the Oracle Retail Service-Oriented Architecture Enabler Tool Guide. |
The functional artifacts are different representations of the same message structure/definition in different technologies (Java EE, PL/SQL). Depending on the retail application's technology, appropriate artifacts are used, converting one from the other as needed.
The core concept is that the single source of truth is the XSD. The XSDs are strict and used by the Artifact Generator to produce the design time physical objects used by the application's API technology (PL/SQL or Java), as well as the runtime validations used by the various integration components.
The most common customization requirements in messaging are the addition of new elements to existing payloads, or the creation of new payloads to support custom business logic added to the base integrated applications.
Each retail message family and type combination maps to one and only one functional message definition. One functional message definition can map to one or more than one family/type combination within the same family. The RTG Integration Guide details these objects and the relationships.
The Oracle AIA approach and Enterprise Business Object (EBO) model, as well as other industry standards have defined an approach using well known tags and locations to separate the custom extension from the base. This allows the extensions to be preserved as updates to base are applied. The Oracle Retail Business Objects have been designed and constructed to accommodate customer extensions following the Oracle AIA EBO standards and guidelines.
For details and in depth examples, see:
Oracle Application Integration Architecture - Enterprise Object Library: Enterprise Business Objects and Messages XML Naming and Design Rules
These standards and conventions define Business Object extension and customization as customer side activities. The RGBU governance process produces a Business Object that is enterprise wide. Changes or additions handled by versioning are packaged as part of a release and defined as Base Objects.
The Artifact Generator is the core tool used for customization and extension of the Business Objects used by the RIB and Web Services generated by the Oracle Retail Service-Oriented Architecture Enabler Tool (RSE).
For details and examples, see:
Oracle Retail Service-Oriented Architecture Enabler Tool Guide.
Chapter 11, "Customization and Extension," of the Oracle Retail Integration Bus Implementation Guide.
The functional artifacts are different representations of the same message structure/definition in different technologies (Java EE, PL/SQL). Depending on the Oracle Retail application's technology, RTG uses the appropriate artifacts, converting one from the other as needed. The following are the RTG functional object definitions.
The functional XML message structure is a contract between the integrating retail applications and is defined by the XML schemas. All the other artifacts are generated from the XML schemas. XML schemas are the inputs required by the artifact generator.
JAXB is a standard Java XML binding technology. It provides the mechanism to convert XML instances to Java objects (and vice versa) in a standard way. The Java EE Web service infrastructure internally uses JAXB to marshall and unmarshall the SOAP messages. For every payload XSD, the artifact generator generates the corresponding JAXB beans.
The Oracle Retail Artifact Generator has dependencies on Oracle Retail Application installations, as well as on the Oracle Application Servers. This section covers these requirements.
For the Artifact Generator tool, there are separate requirements for the Command Line and the GUI.
Supported On | Version Supported |
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Operating System | OS certified:
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Supported On | Version Supported |
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Application Server OS | OS certified with Oracle Fusion Middleware 12c (12.2.1). Options are:
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Application Server | Oracle Fusion Middleware 12c(12.2.1)
Components:
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