Technical rules

Technical rules are a useful alternative to business rules. They support constructs unavailable in BAL such as loops, and features unavailable in BAL such as explicit IRL mapping. Technical rules are written by using the ILOG® Rule Language (IRL). IRL is a Java™-like rule language that can be run directly by the rule engine.

In the Business console, technical rules are shown when you activate the type Technical Rules in the Decision Artifacts tab.

Technical rules are an advanced subject, useful for developers. See the Rule Designer documentation for more information.

A technical rule is made of a condition part and an action part.

  • The condition part, which begins with the keyword when, binds variables to objects and attribute values, and specifies tests on attribute values. This provides a filtering mechanism for objects.

    Examples of IRL condition keywords are:

    • collect
    • evaluate
    • exists
    • from
    • in
    • instanceof
    • not
    • where

  • The action part, which begins with the keyword then, specifies the actions to be carried out if the rule is run. It includes an optional second part which begins with the keyword else, that applies only if the last evaluated statement in the condition part is false.

    Examples of IRL action keywords are:

    • break
    • catch
    • continue
    • foreach
    • modify
    • retract
    • try
    • update
    • throw
    • while