The best way to use the OpenL Tablets rule technology in a solution is to create an OpenL Tablets project in Eclipse. An OpenL Tablets project is a Java project with an OpenL Tablets facet. A typical OpenL Tablets project contains the following general elements:
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OpenL Tablets project contents |
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Element |
Description |
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Main content |
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Excel files |
Physical storage of rules and data in the form of tables. |
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Additional Java code |
Optional classes for domain models and for processing or testing rules in the project. Solution developers can decide whether to include additional code in OpenL Tablets projects. |
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Additional content |
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Ant task for generating static wrappers |
Ant configuration file used for creating wrapper classes for Excel files so that they can be accessed from code. For general information on wrappers, see Wrappers. |
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Wrappers |
Java classes providing access to OpenL Tablets rules in Excel files. Wrappers are generated as described in Generating a Wrapper. |
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Third party dependencies |
Java libraries files used in rules and Java code. |
The following table describes common OpenL Tablets folders in the physical project structure. However, the structure can be adjusted according to the developer’s preferences, for example, to comply with the Maven structure.
Rule projects must contain the default folders rules and gen to be recognized.
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OpenL Tablets project structure |
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Folder |
Contents |
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Contains all project Java classes apart from wrappers. |
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Contains Excel files with rules. |
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Contains generated wrapper classes. |
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Contains compiled Java code. |
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Contains Ant configuration file for generating wrapper classes. For information on generating wrappers, see Generating a Wrapper. |
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Contains rules project dependencies JAR files. |