Saddle adds an additional layer on top of the Mule message handling layer:
The Saddle message layer ensures that every external message format is transformed to a common format that is internally available for Mule. That way, the information of any message can be accessed in a common way via an API that encapsulates the internal message representation.
When an external source system
sends a message to a destination system
, the source format of the message
has to be translated to the format and structure
that is required by the destination system.
Saddle transforms the external source message structure to an internal representation
by using an transformer. The transformer parses the external message format into a so-called message structure template
. This template contains the structure of the external source message and all parsing directives that are required by the transformer.
When the parsing is completed, an internal message representation
has been created that contains all data of the source message. The API that wraps each internal message representation allows to easily access and change the message content. The mapping element
maps the source message structure to an internal representation of the destination message. The mapping element also uses message structure templates
for constructing the structure of the destination messages.
Finally, Saddle transforms
the internal representation of the destination message to the message structure that is required by the destination system
(e.g. XML) and sends them to the destination system .
The Saddle GUI provides different modules for configuring the Saddle message handling layer:
| • | Schema Designer allows the graphical design of the workflow. It can also be used to configure each Mule 2.x or 3.x configuration file independent of whether it uses the Saddle message layer or not. |
| • | Template Designer provides means for the graphical design and testing of the message structure templates. |
| • | Message Mapper is used to develop the mapping logic in a graphical and programmatic way. It is also capable of routing MuleMessages through its logic without using the internal Saddle message format. The user has to care himself about what to do with the messages in this case. |
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