Rapid development of Action Packs

Actions are pre-defined tasks for executing single operations as part of the Workflow. They simplify constructing workflows by providing reusable, ready-to-use, and tested building blocks for frequently needed operations. Most actions are so-called CLI actions. Many of those already contain small Java programs that are delivered together with the action pack to accomplish more complex tasks. Although existing product capabilities already support an easier creation process, developing action packs still requires a lot of knowledge about Automic Automation objects as well as Automic Script. With the Action Pack Development Kit (APDK) the development of simple Java actions can be done with Java only. Enjoy this new developer experience without the need to dig into Automic Automation details!

Goals of this Tutorial

1. Kick-start the development of Java actions
2. Action pack development at a glance
3. Behind the scenes - what Action Pack Development Kit (APDK) does for you

Prerequisites

• Basic knowledge of CDA and/or Automic Automation
• Local installation of Automic Automation/CDA 12.3 including Plugin Manager and installed ITPA Shared action pack
• JDK 11
• Java programming knowledge
• Local JDK and Maven installation

Kick-start the development of Java Actions

mvn archetype:generate -B -DarchetypeGroupId=com.broadcom 
                          -DarchetypeArtifactId=action-pack-archetype 
                          -DarchetypeVersion=1.0.0 
                          -DgroupId=com.mycompany 
                          -DartifactId=my-action-pack 
                          -Dversion=1.0-SNAPSHOT

my-action-pack
|-- src
| |-- main
| |-- java
| | |-- com
| |   |-- mycompany
| |     |-- CustomAction.java
| |     |-- CustomActionPack.java
| |-- test
|   |-- com
|     |-- mycompany
|       |-- CustomActionTest.java
|-- pom.xml

Apart from a working sample implementation of an action pack (CustomActionPack.java), an action (CustomAction.java) and a JUnit 5 test for the action (CustomActionTest.java), it contains a pom-file that defines all required dependencies as well as the build steps that are needed to create a zip-archive that contains the generated action pack. The latter can be taken and installed as Action Pack in CDA.

mvn package

Install your Action Pack

-file and install your Action Pack!

Action Pack development at a glance

Implementing the IActionPack interface

@ActionPack(
  name = "PCK.CUSTOM_SIMPLE", 
  title = "My first Java action pack",
  category = "Custom Actions",
  company = "MyCompany",
  homepage = "http://www.mycompany.com" 
)
public class CustomActionPack extends BaseActionPack {

}

Implementing the IAction interface

@Action(
  name = "HALLO_ACTION", 
  title = "Say Hallo action",
)
public class CustomAction extends BaseAction {
 
  @ActionInputParam
  String yourname;

  @ActionOutputParam
  String greeting;
 
  @Override
  public void run() {
    greeting = yourname != null ? "Hallo " + yourname : "What's your name?";
  }
}

LOGGER.info("This is a log message");

java -jar my-action-pack-1.0.0-SNAPSHOT.jar -r com.mycompany.CustomAction yourname="Max" -l info

Parameter adapter

Input parameters are passed as command line arguments and therefore as Strings. In your action, you can define fields with any data type as input parameters. The Action Pack Development Kit automatically takes care of the convertion of primitive types (byte, short, int, long, float, double, boolean, char) and their corresponsing wrapper classes (Byte, Short, Integer, Long, Float, Double, Boolean, Character), LocalDate, LocalTime, LocalDateTime and enum.

Let's assume that you have a field of a custom type User defined as output parameter for your action:

public class User {

  private String username;
  private String password;

  public User(String username, String password) {
    this.username = username;
    this.password = password;
  }

  public void setUsername(String username) {
    this.username = username;
  }

  public String getUsername() {
    return this.username;
  }

  public void setPassword(String password) {
    this.password = password;
  }

  public String getPassword() {
    return this.password;
  }
}

@ActionOutputParam
@ActionParamAdapter(UserAdapter.class)
User user;

public class UserAdapter extends ParamAdapter<User> {

  @Override
  public String convertToString(User value) {
    String username = value.getUsername() != null ? value.getUsername() : "";
    String password = value.getPassword() != null ? value.getPassword() : "";
    return "\"" + username + "\",\"" + password + "\"";
  }

  @Override
  public User convertToType(String value) {
    String[] attributeValues = value.split(",");
    if (attributeValues.length == 2) {
      String username = attributeValues[0];
      String password = attributeValues[1];
      if (username.length() >= 2 && username.startsWith("\"") && username.endsWith("\"")) {
        username = username.substring(1, username.length() - 1);
      }
      if (password.length() >= 2 && password.startsWith("\"") && password.endsWith("\"")) {
        password = password.substring(1, password.length() - 1);
      }
      return new User(username, password);
    }
    return null;
  }
}

Behind the scenes - what Action Pack Development Kit does for you

Structure of a generated Action Pack

PCK.CUSTOM_SIMPLE
|-- ACTIONS
|-- CONFIG
| |-- PCK.CUSTOM_SIMPLE.PUB.PROMPT_EXTERNAL_MAP
|-- DOCUMENTATION
| |-- PCK.CUSTOM_SIMPLE.PUB.DOC
| |-- PCK.CUSTOM_SIMPLE.PUB.LICENSES
|-- RESOURCES
| |-- INTERPRETERS
| |-- LIBS
| | |-- PCK.CUSTOM_SIMPLE.PRV.STORE
| |-- SCRIPTS
|-- SOURCE
|-- TEMPLATES
|-- PCK.CUSTOM_SIMPLE.PUB.VAR.METADATA

PCK.CUSTOM_SIMPLE
|-- ACTIONS
| |-- BROADCOM
| |-- PCK.CUSTOM_SIMPLE.PUB.ACTION.HELLO (Link)
|-- CONFIG
| |-- PCK.CUSTOM_SIMPLE.PUB.PROMPT_EXTERNAL_MAP
|-- DOCUMENTATION
| |-- PCK.CUSTOM_SIMPLE.PUB.DOC
| |-- PCK.CUSTOM_SIMPLE.PUB.LICENSES
|-- RESOURCES
| |-- INTERPRETERS
| |-- LIBS
| | |-- PCK.CUSTOM_SIMPLE.PRV.STORE
| |-- SCRIPTS
|-- SOURCE
| |-- HELLO
| |-- INTERNAL
| |-- INCLUDES
| |-- JOBS
| | |-- PCK.CUSTOM_SIMPLE.PRV.JOB.HELLO@UNIX
| | |-- PCK.CUSTOM_SIMPLE.PRV.JOB.HELLO@WINDOWS
| |-- PROMPTSETS
| | |-- PCK.CUSTOM_SIMPLE.PRV.PROMPTSET.HELLO
| |-- ROLLBACK
| |-- VARIABLES
| |-- PCK.CUSTOM_SIMPLE.PUB.ACTION.HELLO
|-- TEMPLATES
|-- PCK.CUSTOM_SIMPLE.PUB.VAR.METADATA