Process Developer > Part II: Creating and Modifying Processes > Attachments > Adding an Attachment for Simulation

Adding an Attachment for Simulation

You can add an attachment to a variable to simulate the attachment that a running process would normally receive and send. You can also add properties to the attachment and then manipulate properties with the getAttachmentProperty function. For details, see Custom Functions for Manipulating Attachments.

For a discussion of simulation, see Simulating Execution of a BPEL Process

To add attachments to a variable for simulation:

1. From the Process Editor canvas, select a receive, invoke, onMessage, or onEvent activity.
2. In the Properties view, under Simulation, do one of the following:

- For a receive, onMessage, onEvent, click the Dialog (...) Button at the end of the Input Attachments row
- For an Invoke, click the Dialog (...) Button at the end of the Output Attachments or Fault Attachments row

3. In the Input/Output/Fault Attachments dialog, select Add.
4. In the Attachment dialog, select either File System or Project for an attachment location, and browse to select an attachment.
5. Notice that known content properties are identified. For example, if you attach a GIF image, the Content Type is image/gif.

Note that the X-Size property that is added to indicate the size of the attachment in bytes.

6. If desired, edit the known properties, or add a new property as follows:

a. Select Add to open the Attachment Properties dialog.
b. Type in a Property Name and Value. Note that the property must be a known property of the attachment.
c. Click OK.

7. Click OK to close the Attachments dialog.
8. To add another attachment, select Add on the Input/Output/Fault dialog, and continue adding an attachment.

After adding attachments, start simulation, as described in Starting and Ending Simulation of a BPEL Process

During simulation, open the process variables that have attachments. As the process receives, sends, or copies attachments, you can view the results in the Process Variables view.

Attachment properties must conform to known properties. For details, see abx:getAttachmentProperty in Custom Functions for Manipulating Attachments.