LTSA-Eclipse Preview

Tutorial 2

Modeling BPEL4WS Compositions

The LTSA-Eclipse plug-in is an extension to core LTSA tool that allows the creation of models of processes, driven by a formal behaviour model. 

The home of the LTSA-Eclipse Preview plug-in is here.

The Tutorial 1 for the LTSA-Eclipse Preview is here.

This tutorial contains:

• Switching to the LTSA perspective
• Creating a new project
• Importing a BPEL4WS process
• Opening a BPEL4WS process in the LTSA-BPEL Editor
• Compiling processes and compositions
• View the process in the Graphical LTS Draw View
• Viewing and editing the BPEL4WS FSP

Prerequisites

The following plug-in requirements are necessary to carry out this tutorial:

1. An installation of Eclipse 3.0.1+ (tested on build 200409161125)
2. The preview plug-in build - click here to download. 
3. The samples from IBM BPWS4J 2.1 - click here to download.

Installing the plug-in

Locate the installation directory of Eclipse.  Unzip the plug-in to the \eclipse\plugins directory.  After this has completed, browse to the plugins directory and verify that the directory now contains a ltsaeclipse_1.0.0 sub-directory.

Starting the environment

Start Eclipse using your normal start up routine.

A. Switching to the LTSA Perspective

1. From the Eclipse menu bar, select Window -> Open Perspective -> Other -> LTSA Perspective. If this menu item is not present, then the plug-in has not been successfully installed.
2. Notice the layout of views/windows will be similar to that illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1. LTSA Perspective in Eclipse

B. Creating a new BPEL4WS project 

3. From the Eclipse menu bar, select File -> New -> Project.
4. Select the Simple -> Project as the type you wish to create and select Next.
5. Enter the name of the new project as LTSABPEL and select Next.

C. Importing a sample BPEL4WS process

1. Locate the installation directory of IBM BPWS4J Engine.
2. From the Eclipse menu bar, select File -> Import -> File System and select Next.
3. Select the Samples folder in the IBM BPWS4J Installation directory and ensure the "Into Folder" contains the value LTSABPEL.
4. Click Finish to import the samples folder, which will display its content in the Navigator view of the Eclipse workbench.

D. Opening a sample BPEL4WS process in the BPEL4WS LTSA Editor view

1. Navigate to the Marketplace example in the LTSABPEL4WS/marketplace folder using the Navigator view.
2. Open the folder, and select the marketplace.bpel file.
3. Right-click the marketplace.bpel file, and select Open With -> LTSA-BPEL Editor to open the bpel file.

Figure 2. BPEL LTSA Editor View for new LTS

4. The bpel file will be opened in the LTSA-BPEL editor.  Also notice that the Outline view contains some entries for the formal process outline, including Constants, Sets, Ranges, Compositions, Processes and Properties.
5. To initially populate the outline view, select Build -> Translate from the Eclipse Workbench menu items.
6. The Outline view will now contain some entries for compositions of the BPEL4WS process.
7. The above features are illustrated in Figure 3.

Figure Features illustrated in LTSA-BPEL Editor

E. Compiling processes and compositions

1. Note that each of the compositions listed in the Outline->Compositions children are parallel processes formed from translation of the BPEL process.
2. To compile a composition into Finite State Machine, right-click a composition (e.g. MARKETPLACE_BPELModel).
3. Select the compile sub-menu item.
4. Notice that a compilation job is started, and compilation progress listed in the Output View (Figure 4).
5. Scroll the Output View to determine the result of compilation.

Figure 4 Compile action (left) and Output View of compiled processes (right)

F. View the process in the Graphical LTS Process Draw view

1. Switch to the LTS Process view. If this view is not visible, enable it by Window -> Show View -> Other -> LTSA -> LTS Process.
2. Select the MARKETPLACE_SEQUENCE1 process (from the left hand of the view pane listing the processes compiled).
3. Use the Expand/Reduce Height/Width view toolbar to expand or reduce the drawing canvas.

Figure Process view as Graphical LTS Draw

G. Viewing and editing the BPEL4WS Process Finite State Process (FSP)

1. Select the FSP Editor window for the marketplace.bpel file.
2. This editor lists the FSP representation for the BPEL4WS process (as illustrated in Figure 5). 

Figure 5Editor View for FSP source code of BPEL4WS parallel composition definitions

3. This editor can also be used to specify any additional FSP properties or processes required.

END OF TUTORIAL

Author: Howard Foster - 14/03/2005