Drools Tools Reference Guide

Version: 5.0.0.M5
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1
1.1. What is Drools? .................................................................................................. 1
1.2. Drools Tools Key Features .................................................................................. 1
1.3. Other relevant resources on the topic .................................................................. 2
2. Creating a New Drools Project .................................................................................... 3
2.1. Creating a Sample Drools Project ........................................................................ 3
2.2. Drools Project Structure Overview ....................................................................... 8
2.3. Creating a New Rule .......................................................................................... 9
3. Debugging rules ........................................................................................................ 13
3.1. Creating Breakpoints ......................................................................................... 13
3.2. Debugging ........................................................................................................ 14
4. Editors ....................................................................................................................... 17
4.1. The Rule Editor ................................................................................................ 17
4.1.1. Content Assist ........................................................................................ 17
4.1.2. Code Folding ......................................................................................... 19
4.1.3. Synchronization with Outline View ........................................................... 20
4.1.4. The Rete Tree View ............................................................................... 21

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Chapter 1.

Introduction
1.1. What is Drools?
Drools is a business rule management system (BRMS) with a forward chaining inference
based rules engine, more correctly known as a production rule system, using an enhanced
implementation of the Rete algorithm.

In this guide we are going to get you familiar with Drools Eclipse plugin which provides
development tools for creating, executing and debugging Drools processes and rules from within
Eclipse.

Note:

It is assumed that you has some familiarity with rule engines and Drools
in particular. If no, we suggest that you look carefully through the
Drools Documentation [http://downloads.jboss.com/drools/docs/4.0.7.19894.GA/
html_single/index.html].

Drools Tools come bundled with JBoss Tools set of Eclipse plugins. How to install
JBoss Tools you can find in the Getting Started Guide [../../GettingStartedGuide/html_single/
index.html#JBossToolsInstall].

1.2. Drools Tools Key Features

The following table lists all valuable features of the Drools Tools.

Table 1.1. Key Functionality of Drools Tools

Feature Benefit Chapter

Wizard for The wizard allows to create a sample project to easy get started with Creating
creating a Drools a Sample
new Drools Drools
Project Project
Wizards A set of wizards are provided with the Drools Eclipse tools to quickly Creating a
for creation create a new Rule resource, a new Domain Specific language, New Rule
new Drools Decision Table and Business rule
resources
The Rule An editor that is aware of DRL syntax and provides content The Rule
editor assistance and synchronizing with the Outline view Editor
The The editor allows to create and manage mappings from users
Domain language to the rule language

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Chapter 1. Introduction

Feature Benefit Chapter

Specific
Language
editor
The Guided This guided editor for rules allows you to build rules in a GUI driven
editor fashion based on your object model
The Rule The editor is meant for editing visual graphs which represent a
Flow process (a rule flow)
graphical
editor

1.3. Other relevant resources on the topic

• Drools on JBoss.org [http://www.jboss.org/drools/]

• JBoss Tools Home Page [http://www.jboss.org/tools/]

• The latest JBossTools/JBDS documentation builds [http://download.jboss.org/jbosstools/

nightly-docs/]

• Stable JBossTools/JBDS documentation [http://www.jboss.com/products/devstudio/docs]

(supplied with the latest JBDS release, 1.1.0 GA currently)

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Chapter 2.

Creating a New Drools Project

In this chapter we are going to show you how to setup an executable sample Drools project to
start using rules immediately.

2.1. Creating a Sample Drools Project

First, we suggest that you use Drools perspective which is aimed at work with Drools specific
resources.

To create a new Drools project follow to File > New > Drools Project. This will open New Drools
Project wizard like on the figure below.

On the first page type the project name and click Next.

Figure 2.1. Creating a New Drools Project

Next you have a choice to add some default artifacts to it like sample rules, decision tables or
ruleflows and Java classes for them. Let's select first two check boxes and press Next.

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Chapter 2. Creating a New Dro...

Figure 2.2. Selecting Drools Project Elements

Next page asks you to specify a Drools runtime. If you have not yet set it up, you should do this
now by clicking the Configure Workspace Settings link.

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 Creating a Sample Drools Project

Figure 2.3. Configuring Drools Runtime

You should see the Prefernces window where you can configure the workspace settings for Drools
runtimes. To create a new runtime, press the Add button. The appeared dialog prompts you to
enter a name for a new runtime and a path to the Drools runtime on your file system.

Note:

A Drools runtime is a collection of jars on your file system that represent one
specific release of the Drools project jars. While creating a new runtime, you must
either point to the release of your choice, or you can simply create a new runtime
on your file system from the jars included in the Drools Eclipse plugin.

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Chapter 2. Creating a New Dro...

Figure 2.4. Adding a New Drools Runtime

Let's simply create a new Drools 5 runtime from the jars embedded in the Drools Eclipse plugin.
Thus, you should press Create a new Drools 5 runtime button and select the folder where you
want this runtime to be created and hit OK.

You will see the newly created runtime show up in your list of Drools runtimes. Check it and press
OK.

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 Creating a Sample Drools Project

Figure 2.5. Selecting a Drools Runtime

Now press Finish to complete the project creation.

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Chapter 2. Creating a New Dro...

Figure 2.6. Completing the Drools Project Creation

This will setup a basic structure, classpath and sample rules and test case to get you started.

2.2. Drools Project Structure Overview

Now let's look at the structure of the organized project. In the Package Explorer you should see
the following:

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 Creating a New Rule

Figure 2.7. Drools Project in the Package Explorer

The newly created project contains an example rule file Sample.drl in the src/main/rules directory
and an example java file DroolsTest.java that can be used to execute the rules in a Drools engine
in the folder src/main/java , in the com.sample package. All the others jar's that are necessary
during execution are also added to the classpath in a custom classpath container called Drools
Library.

Tip:

Rules do not have to be kept in Java projects at all, this is just a convenience for
people who are already using eclipse as their Java IDE.

2.3. Creating a New Rule

Now we are going to add a new Rule resource to the project.

You can either create an empty text .drl file or make use of the special New Rule Resource
wizard to do it.

To open the wizard follow to File > New > Rule Resource or use the menu with the JBoss Drools
icon on the toolbar.

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Chapter 2. Creating a New Dro...

Figure 2.8. Opening the New Rule Resource Wizard

On the wizard page first select /rules as a top level directory to store your rules and type the
rule name. Next it's mandatory to specify the rule package name. It defines a namespace that
groups rules together.

Figure 2.9. New Rule Resource Wizard

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 Creating a New Rule

As a result the wizard generates a rule skeleton to get you started.

Figure 2.10. New Rule

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Chapter 3.

Debugging rules
This chapter describes how to debug rules during the execution of your Drools application.

3.1. Creating Breakpoints

At first, we'll focus on how to add breakpoints in the consequences of your rules.

Whenever such a breakpoint is uncounted during the execution of the rules, the execution is
halted. It's possible then inspect the variables known at that point and use any of the default
debugging actions to decide what should happen next (step over, continue, etc). To inspect the
content of the working memory and agenda the Debug views can be used.

You can add/remove rule breakpoints in .drl files in two ways, similar to adding breakpoints to
Java files:

• Double-click the ruler in the Rule editor at the line where you want to add a breakpoint.

Tip:

Note that rule breakpoints can only be created in the consequence of a rule.
Double-clicking on a line where no breakpoint is allowed will do nothing.

A breakpoint can be removed by double-clicking the ruler once more.

• Right-click the ruler. Select Toggle Breakpoint action in the appeared popup menu. Clicking
the action will add a breakpoint at the selected line or remove it if there is one already.

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Chapter 3. Debugging rules

Figure 3.1. Adding Breakpoints

The Debug perspective contains a Breakpoints view which can be used to see all defined
breakpoints, get their properties, enable/disable or remove them, etc. You can switch to it by
navigating to Window > Perspective > Others > Debug.

3.2. Debugging
Drools breakpoints are only enabled if you debug your application as a Drools Application. To do
this you should perform one of the actions:

• Select the main class of your application. Right click it and select Debug As > Drools Application.

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 Debugging

Figure 3.2. Debugging Drools Application

• Alternatively, you can also go to Debug As > Debug Configuration to open a new dialog for
creating, managing and running debug configurations.

Select the Drools Application item in the left tree and click the New launch configuration button
(leftmost icon in the toolbar above the tree). This will create a new configuration and already fill
in some of the properties (like the Project and Main class) based on main class you selected in
the beginning. All properties shown here are the same as any standard Java program.

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Chapter 3. Debugging rules

Figure 3.3. New Debug Configuration

Tip:

Remember to change the name of your debug configuration to something

meaningful.

Next click the Debug button on the bottom to start debugging your application.

After enabling the debugging, the application starts executing and will halt if any breakpoint
is encountered. This can be a Drools rule breakpoint, or any other standard Java breakpoint.
Whenever a Drools rule breakpoint is encountered, the corresponding .drl file is opened and the
active line is highlighted. The Variables view also contains all rule parameters and their value. You
can then use the default Java debug actions to decide what to do next (resume, terminate, step
over, etc.). The debug views can also be used to determine the contents of the working memory
and agenda at that time as well (you don't have to select a working memory now, the current
executing working memory is automatically shown).

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Chapter 4.

Editors
4.1. The Rule Editor
The Rule editor works on files that have a .drl (or .rule in the case of spreading rules across
multiple rule files) extension.

Figure 4.1. New Rule

The editor follows the pattern of a normal text editor in eclipse, with all the normal features of a
text editor:

• Content Assist

• Code Folding

• Synchronization with Outline View

4.1.1. Content Assist

While working in the Rule editor you can get a content assistance the usual way by pressing Ctrl
+ Space.

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Chapter 4. Editors

Content Assist shows all possible keywords for the current cursor position.

Figure 4.2. Content Assist Demonstration

Content Assist inside of the Message suggests all available fields.

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 Code Folding

Figure 4.3. Content Assist Demonstration

4.1.2. Code Folding

Code folding is also available in the Rule editor. To hide/show sections of the file use the icons
with minus/plus on the left vertical line of the editor.

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Chapter 4. Editors

Figure 4.4. Code Folding

4.1.3. Synchronization with Outline View

The Rule editor works in synchronization with the Outline view which shows the structure of the
rules, imports in the file and also globals and functions if the file has them.

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 The Rete Tree View

Figure 4.5. Synchronization with Outline View

The view is updated on save. It provides a quick way of navigating around rules by names in a
file which may have hundreds of rules. The items are sorted alphabetically by default.

4.1.4. The Rete Tree View

The Rete Tree view shows you the current Rete Network for your .drl file. Just click on the Rete
Tree tab at the bottom of the Rule editor.

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Chapter 4. Editors

Figure 4.6. Rete Tree

Afterwards you can generate the current Rete Network visualization. You can push and pull the
nodes to arrange your optimal network overview.

If you got hundreds of nodes, select some of them with a frame. Then you can pull groups of them.

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 The Rete Tree View

Figure 4.7. Selecting the nodes in the Rete Tree with Frame

You can zoom in and out the Rete tree in case not all nodes are shown in the current view. For
this use the combo box or "+" and "-" icons on the toolbar.

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Chapter 4. Editors

Figure 4.8. Rete Tree Zooming

Note:

The Rete Tree view works only in Drools Rule Projects, where the Drools Builder
is set in the project properties.

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