Mule Enricher Example

Mule enricher as the name suggests helps use to enrich the existing message. For example, we can enrich the payload, or add new headers, attachments to the current message or call out to another processor and assign the result to a flow variable without overwriting the existing payload. We can define the part that we are enriching in the attribute target.

Enriching message with an outbound property

In the below <enricher> element we initialize the outbound property header1 to payload specified using attribute source. We further transform the message using <append-string-transformer>.

<enricher target="#[header:OUTBOUND:header1]" source="#[payload]">
    <append-string-transformer message=" and something more" />
</enricher>

Multiple enrich elements

We can enrich the message multiple times using child enricher elements each of which has its own target attribute.

<enricher>
    <append-string-transformer message=" and more " />
    <enrich target="#[header:OUTBOUND:header1]" />
    <enrich target="#[header:OUTBOUND:header2]" source="#[payload]" />
</enricher>

Enrich using flow variable

The enricher can call out to another processor or flow. In the below example, we call a different flow using flow-ref, the result returned by the flow is assigned to a flow variable thus the existing payload is not overwritten.

<enricher target="#[variable:status]">
    <flow-ref name="determineStatus" />
</enricher>
<custom-processor class="com.javarticles.mule.MyProcessor"/>

<sub-flow name="determineStatus">
    <expression-transformer expression="Processed #[payload]" evaluator="string" />
</sub-flow>

In the custom processor we retrieve the flow variable.

MyProcessor:

package com.javarticles.mule;

import org.mule.api.MuleEvent;
import org.mule.api.MuleException;
import org.mule.api.processor.MessageProcessor;

public class MyProcessor implements MessageProcessor {

    @Override
    public MuleEvent process(MuleEvent event) throws MuleException {
        Object enrichedContent = event.getMessage().getInvocationProperty("status");
        System.out.println("Flow variable(status)=" + enrichedContent);
        return event;
    }

}

Here is the complete mule context.

muleContext.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<mule xmlns="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xmlns:spring="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" xmlns:vm="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/vm"
	xsi:schemaLocation="
               http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-current.xsd
               http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core/current/mule.xsd
               http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/vm http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/vm/current/mule-vm.xsd">


	<flow name="enrichWithAttributes">
		<vm:inbound-endpoint path="enrich1-in"
			exchange-pattern="request-response" />
		<enricher target="#[header:OUTBOUND:header1]" source="#[payload]">
			<append-string-transformer message=" and something more" />
		</enricher>
	</flow>

	<flow name="enrichWithElements">
		<vm:inbound-endpoint path="enrich2-in"
			exchange-pattern="request-response" />
		<enricher>
			<append-string-transformer message=" and more " />
			<enrich target="#[header:OUTBOUND:header1]" />
			<enrich target="#[header:OUTBOUND:header2]" source="#[payload]" />
		</enricher>
	</flow>

	<flow name="enrichWithFlowRef">
		<vm:inbound-endpoint path="enrich3-in"
			exchange-pattern="request-response" />
		<enricher target="#[variable:status]">
			<flow-ref name="determineStatus" />
		</enricher>
		<custom-processor class="com.javarticles.mule.MyProcessor"/>
	</flow>

	<sub-flow name="determineStatus">
		<expression-transformer expression="Processed #[payload]"
			evaluator="string" />
	</sub-flow>
</mule>

We send messages to each of the flows and verify the message properties.

MuleEnricherExample:

package com.javarticles.mule;

import org.mule.api.MuleContext;
import org.mule.api.MuleMessage;
import org.mule.api.client.MuleClient;
import org.mule.api.context.MuleContextBuilder;
import org.mule.api.context.MuleContextFactory;
import org.mule.config.DefaultMuleConfiguration;
import org.mule.config.spring.SpringXmlConfigurationBuilder;
import org.mule.context.DefaultMuleContextBuilder;
import org.mule.context.DefaultMuleContextFactory;

public class MuleEnricherExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        DefaultMuleConfiguration dmc = new DefaultMuleConfiguration();
        dmc.setId("muleexample");
        dmc.setWorkingDirectory("/esb/mule");
        SpringXmlConfigurationBuilder configBuilder = new SpringXmlConfigurationBuilder(
                "muleContext.xml");
        MuleContextBuilder contextBuilder = new DefaultMuleContextBuilder();
        contextBuilder.setMuleConfiguration(dmc);
        MuleContextFactory contextFactory = new DefaultMuleContextFactory();
        MuleContext ctx = contextFactory.createMuleContext(configBuilder,
                contextBuilder);
        ctx.start();
        try {
            System.out.println("Test enrich1-in flow");
            MuleClient muleClient = ctx.getClient();
            MuleMessage response = muleClient.send("vm://enrich1-in", "XYZ", null);
            System.out.println("Header1: " + response.getInboundProperty("header1"));

            System.out.println("Test enrich2-in flow");            
            response = muleClient.send("vm://enrich2-in", "XYZ", null);
            System.out.println("Header1: " + response.getInboundProperty("header1"));
            System.out.println("Header2: " + response.getInboundProperty("header2"));
            
            System.out.println("Test enrich3-in flow");         
            response = muleClient.send("vm://enrich3-in", "XYZ", null);
        } finally {
            ctx.dispose();
        }
    }
}

Output:

Test enrich1-in flow
[INFO ] 2018-07-12 18:06:52.701 [main]AbstractLifecycleManager - Initialising: 'connector.VM.mule.default.dispatcher.1153802607'. Object is: VMMessageDispatcher
[INFO ] 2018-07-12 18:06:52.701 [main]AbstractLifecycleManager - Starting: 'connector.VM.mule.default.dispatcher.1153802607'. Object is: VMMessageDispatcher
Header1: XYZ and something more
Test enrich2-in flow
[INFO ] 2018-07-12 18:06:52.797 [main]AbstractLifecycleManager - Initialising: 'connector.VM.mule.default.dispatcher.1893987183'. Object is: VMMessageDispatcher
[INFO ] 2018-07-12 18:06:52.797 [main]AbstractLifecycleManager - Starting: 'connector.VM.mule.default.dispatcher.1893987183'. Object is: VMMessageDispatcher
Header1: XYZ and more 
Header2: XYZ and more 
Test enrich3-in flow
[INFO ] 2018-07-12 18:06:52.813 [main]AbstractLifecycleManager - Initialising: 'connector.VM.mule.default.dispatcher.2104842259'. Object is: VMMessageDispatcher
[INFO ] 2018-07-12 18:06:52.813 [main]AbstractLifecycleManager - Starting: 'connector.VM.mule.default.dispatcher.2104842259'. Object is: VMMessageDispatcher
Flow variable(status)=Processed XYZ

Download the source code

This was an example about Mule Enricher.