User-defined extensions

A user-defined extension is a component that you can design and implement to add to the function of your implementation of WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker.

With WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker, you can create and implement the following types of user-defined extensions: User-defined nodes and parsers that you create can be used in conjunction with both the nodes and parsers supplied with the product, and with third-party supplied nodes and parsers. You can also configure a user-defined node to use a user-defined parser that you have written rather than one of the supplied parsers.

A user-defined parser must be written in the C programming language. User-defined nodes can be written in the C or Java programming language. User-defined nodes and parsers written in C must be compiled into a loadable implementation library, that is, a shared library on UNIX, or a Windows DLL. User-defined nodes written in Java must be packaged as a jar file. You must integrate any user-defined extension you create into the WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker tooling before you can use it.

If you plan to program using the supplied plug-in interface, you must install the "Samples and SDK" optional component on at least one system. The SDK provides the required header files and contains samples that you can modify to your own requirements.

You can use your new node types on more than one operating system, if you make them platform independent. You can achieve this platform independence by using the ANSI standard C or Java programming languages, and by avoiding the use of platform specific code in your user-defined extension.

For information on each type of user-defined extension that you can create, see the relevant topics in this section of the help. The topics in this section will help you understand how your user-defined extension interact with other components of WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker, such as message flows and their associated execution groups. A good understanding of the broker architecture will help you to plan and construct your user-defined extensions more effectively.

Related concepts
User-defined Input nodes
User-defined message processing nodes
User-defined output nodes
User-defined parsers

Related tasks
Developing user-defined extensions

Related reference
User-defined extensions