How to access BRE Vocabularies from .NET

Let's assume that you need to access a Biztalk Business rules vocabulary definitions from a .NET assembly. You need to understand how the BRE API is setup to handle this.

Let's create a vocabulary with a definition constant of type string:



Now create the definition with the type of string as follows:



Exporting this vocabulary using the Business Rules Engine Deployment Wizard, the xml will look like this: [notice all 6 fields in green...]

1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

    2 <brl xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/businessruleslanguage/2002">

    3   <vocabulary id="1d3ad67e-1ed3-46ed-88a7-23199eef8fcd" name="Sample_ValidNames" uri="" description="">

    4     <version major="1" minor="0" description="" modifiedby="LocalDC\awing" date="2007-09-07T21:55:45.545-04:00" />

    5     <vocabularydefinition id="cdff8b38-e565-4942-b76f-72161449a457" name="Definition1_DefinitionName" description="Definition1_DefinitionDescription">

    6       <literaldefinition type="string">

    7         <string>Definition1_DefinitionValue</string>

    8       </literaldefinition>

    9       <formatstring language="en-US" string="Definition1_DefinitionDisplayName" />

   10     </vocabularydefinition>

   11   </vocabulary>

   12 </brl>

To access the different part of this vocabulary, I use this C# code to access all of the parts for this vocabulary definition.

Add the namespaces:

    1 using System.Diagnostics;

    2 using Microsoft.RuleEngine;

then copy the following code:

    1         public void GetAllDefinitionsFromVocabulary(string vocabularyName)

    2         {

    3             RuleStore breStore;

    4             RuleSetDeploymentDriver breDriver = new RuleSetDeploymentDriver();

    5 

    6             breStore = breDriver.GetRuleStore();

    7             Trace.WriteLine(string.Format("bts- ## Vocabulary:[{0}] ##", vocabularyName));

    8             Trace.WriteLine("bts-");

    9 

   10             VocabularyInfoCollection breVocInfoCol;

   11             breVocInfoCol = breStore.GetVocabularies(vocabularyName, RuleStore.Filter.All);

   12             foreach (VocabularyInfo oVoc in breVocInfoCol)

   13             {

   14                 Vocabulary _vocab = breStore.GetVocabulary(oVoc);                

   15 

   16                 foreach (VocabularyDefinition vocDefn in _vocab.Definitions)

   17                 {

   18                     ///string x = o["en-US"].Format;

   19                     Trace.WriteLine(string.Format("bts- Definition.Id: [{0}]", vocDefn.Id));

   20                     Trace.WriteLine(string.Format("bts- Definition.Name: [{0}]", vocDefn.Name));

   21                     Trace.WriteLine(string.Format("bts- Definition.Description: [{0}]", vocDefn.Description));

   22 

   23                     LiteralDefinition literalDefinition = vocDefn as LiteralDefinition;

   24 

   25                     //literaldefinition

   26                     if (literalDefinition != null)

   27                     {

   28                         if (literalDefinition.Value != null)

   29                         {

   30                             Trace.WriteLine(string.Format("bts- literal: [{0}]", literalDefinition.Value.ToString()));

   31                         }

   32                     }

   33 

   34                     //formatstring definition

   35                     foreach (FormatString frm in vocDefn.FormatStrings)

   36                     {

   37                         Trace.WriteLine(string.Format("bts- frm.Language: [{0}]", frm.Language));

   38                         Trace.WriteLine(string.Format("bts- frm.Format: [{0}]", frm.Format));

   39                     }

   40 

   41                     Trace.WriteLine("bts- ----------------------------------");

   42                 }

   43             }

So if I call my method with the vocabulary name = Sample_ValidNames. Then in DebugView you can see that we get all 6 fields that we set on the wizard and on the XML exported file.

    1 [5844] bts- ## Vocabulary:[Sample_ValidNames] ## 

    2 [5844] bts- 

    3 [5844] bts- Definition.Id: [cdff8b38-e565-4942-b76f-72161449a457] 

    4 [5844] bts- Definition.Name: [Definition1_DefinitionName] 

    5 [5844] bts- Definition.Description: [Definition1_DefinitionDescription] 

    6 [5844] bts- literal: [Definition1_DefinitionValue] 

    7 [5844] bts- frm.Language: [en-US] 

    8 [5844] bts- frm.Format: [Definition1_DefinitionDisplayName] 

    9 [5844] bts- ---------------------------------- 

   10 [5844] bts- Done 

There, hope this helps someone. [dont forget to post your comment if this code helps you out.. ;)