[[bean-language]]
== Bean method Language

*Available as of Camel version 1.3*

The purpose of the Bean Language is to be able to implement an
Expression or Predicate using
a simple method on a bean.

So the idea is you specify a bean name which will then be resolved in
the Registry such as the Spring
ApplicationContext then a method is invoked to evaluate the
Expression or Predicate.

If no method name is provided then one is attempted to be chosen using
the rules for Bean Binding; using the type of
the message body and using any annotations on the bean methods.

The Bean Binding rules are used to bind the
Message Exchange to the method parameters; so you can
annotate the bean to extract headers or other expressions such as
<<xpath-language,XPath>> or <<xpath-language,XQuery>> from the message.

=== Bean Options

// language options: START
The Bean method language supports 5 options, which are listed below.



[width="100%",cols="2,1m,1m,6",options="header"]
|===
| Name | Default | Java Type | Description
| bean |  | String | *Deprecated* Either a reference or a class name of the bean to use
| ref |  | String | Reference to bean to lookup in the registry
| method |  | String | Name of method to call
| beanType |  | String | Class name of the bean to use
| trim | true | Boolean | Whether to trim the value to remove leading and trailing whitespaces and line breaks
|===
// language options: END


=== Using Bean Expressions from the Java DSL

[source,java]
----
from("activemq:topic:OrdersTopic").
  filter().method("myBean", "isGoldCustomer").
    to("activemq:BigSpendersQueue");
----

=== Using Bean Expressions from XML

[source,xml]
----
<route>
  <from uri="activemq:topic:OrdersTopic"/>
  <filter>
    <method ref="myBean" method="isGoldCustomer"/>
    <to uri="activemq:BigSpendersQueue"/>
  </filter>
</route>
----

CAUTION: Bean attribute is now deprecated. The `bean` attribute of the method expression element is now
deprecated. You should now make use of `ref` attribute instead.

=== Writing the expression bean

The bean in the above examples is just any old Java Bean with a method
called isGoldCustomer() that returns some object that is easily
converted to a *boolean* value in this case, as its used as a predicate.

So we could implement it like this...

[source,java]
----
public class MyBean {
  public boolean isGoldCustomer(Exchange exchange) {
    ...
  }
}
----

We can also use the Bean Integration
annotations. For example you could do...

[source,java]
----
public boolean isGoldCustomer(String body) {
  // do something
}
----

or

[source,java]
----
public boolean isGoldCustomer(@Header(name = "foo") Integer fooHeader) {
  // do something
}
----

So you can bind parameters of the method to the Exchange, the
Message or individual headers, properties, the body
or other expressions.

=== Non registry beans

The <<bean-language,Bean Language>> also supports invoking beans
that isn't registered in the Registry. This is
usable for quickly to invoke a bean from Java DSL where you don't need
to register the bean in the Registry such as the
Spring ApplicationContext.

Camel can instantiate the bean and invoke the method if given a class or
invoke an already existing instance. This is illustrated from the
example below:

[source,java]
----
from("activemq:topic:OrdersTopic").
        filter().expression(BeanLanguage(MyBean.class, "isGoldCustomer")).
        to("activemq:BigSpendersQueue");
----

The 2nd parameter `isGoldCustomer` is an optional parameter to explicit
set the method name to invoke. If not provided Camel will try to invoke
the best suited method. If case of ambiguity Camel will thrown an
Exception. In these situations the 2nd parameter can solve this problem.
Also the code is more readable if the method name is provided. The 1st
parameter can also be an existing instance of a Bean such as:

[source,java]
----
private MyBean my;

    from("activemq:topic:OrdersTopic").
        filter().expression(BeanLanguage.bean(my, "isGoldCustomer")).
            to("activemq:BigSpendersQueue");
----

In Camel 2.2 onwards you can avoid the `BeanLanguage` and have it just
as:

[source,java]
----
private MyBean my;

    from("activemq:topic:OrdersTopic").
        filter().expression(bean(my, "isGoldCustomer")).
            to("activemq:BigSpendersQueue");
----

Which also can be done in a bit shorter and nice way:

[source,java]
----
private MyBean my;

    from("activemq:topic:OrdersTopic").
        filter().method(my, "isGoldCustomer").
            to("activemq:BigSpendersQueue");
----

=== Dependencies

The Bean language is part of *camel-core*.