Create or Edit Variable Dialog - General Tab

Use to manage (create, edit, or delete) a variable.

Variables contain messages that constitute the state of a business process. These messages are typically received from partners or sent to partners. Variables can also contain data required for holding state information related to the process that is never exchanged between partners. Variables are defined in terms of XML schema simple types, Web Services Description Language (WSDL) message types, or XML schema elements. Variables associated with message types can be specified as input or output variables for invoke, receive, and reply activities.

For more information about variables, see the Business Process Execution Language for Web Services Specification (for BPEL 1.1) or the Web Services Business Process Execution Language Version 2.0 Specification.at http://www.oasis-open.org.

Element	Description
Name	Enter a name or accept the default name of `Variablenumber`. The name must be unique within its own scope. Once complete, this name displays under the second Variables folder in the Structure window and in the Variable Chooser window.
Type	Select one of the following types and click the respective Search icon to browse a list of types to use with this variable. Message types are used to specify the type of a variable.
Type	Select an XML schema simple type (for example, string, boolean, float, and so on). This type is selected by default.
Message Type	Select a WSDL message file definition of a partner link or of the project WSDL file of the current BPEL process (for example, a response message or request message). Variables associated with message types can be specified as input or output variables for invoke, receive, and reply activities.
Element	Select an XML schema element of the project schema file or project WSDL file of the current BPEL process, or of a partner link.
Entity Variable (BPEL 1.1 only)	Click to select an entity variable. The entity variable can be used with an Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) Business Component data provider service using service data object (SDO)-based data. The entity variable enables you to specify BPEL data operations to be performed by an underlying data provider service. The data provider service performs the data operations in a data store behind the scenes and without use of other data store-related features provided by Oracle BPEL Process Manager (for example, the database adapter). This action enhances Oracle BPEL Process Manager runtime performance and incorporates native features of the underlying data provider service during compilation and runtime.
Partner Link	Click the Search icon to select the SDO service.
SDO Capable	Select to make this variable SDO-capable if the schema defines it. This is different from entity variables. This type of data does not necessarily contain a unique key value. The data life cycle of this variable is similar to a BPEL XML DOM-based variable. The major difference is that the underlying data form is SDO-based, instead of DOM-based. Therefore, it can use some SDO features (for example, Java API access and change summary). However, its usage is also subject to some SDO restrictions that do not exist in XML-DOM (for example, SDO supports a small subset of XPath expressions).