4.6. Message Translator

Overview

The message translator pattern, shown in Figure 4.8, “Message Translator Pattern” describes a component that modifies the contents of a message, translating it to a different format. You can use Apache Camel’s bean integration feature to perform the message translation.

Figure 4.8. Message Translator Pattern 

Bean integration

You can transform a message using bean integration, which enables you to call a method on any registered bean. For example, to call the method, myMethodName(), on the bean with ID, myTransformerBean:

from("activemq:SomeQueue")
  .beanRef("myTransformerBean", "myMethodName")
  .to("mqseries:AnotherQueue");

Where the myTransformerBean bean is defined in either a Spring XML file or in JNDI. If, you omit the method name parameter from beanRef(), the bean integration will try to deduce the method name to invoke by examining the message exchange.

You can also add your own explicit Processor instance to perform the transformation, as follows:

from("direct:start").process(new Processor() {
    public void process(Exchange exchange) {
        Message in = exchange.getIn();
        in.setBody(in.getBody(String.class) + " World!");
    }
}).to("mock:result");

Or, you can use the DSL to explicitly configure the transformation, as follows:

from("direct:start").setBody(body().append(" World!")).to("mock:result");

You can also use templating to consume a message from one destination, transform it with something like Velocity or XQuery and then send it on to another destination. For example, using the InOnly exchange pattern (one-way messaging) :

from("activemq:My.Queue").
  to("velocity:com/acme/MyResponse.vm").
  to("activemq:Another.Queue");

If you want to use InOut (request-reply) semantics to process requests on the My.Queue queue on ActiveMQ with a template generated response, then you could use a route like the following to send responses back to the JMSReplyTo destination:

from("activemq:My.Queue").
  to("velocity:com/acme/MyResponse.vm");