WebSphere Event Broker includes a large number of message processing nodes that you can use within your message flows. You can also choose from user-defined nodes that have been created and supplied by users, or other vendors and companies.
Your decision about which nodes to use depends on the processing that you want to perform on your messages. The built-in nodes can be considered in several categories, and are displayed in the workbench grouped in those categories (although this grouping has no effect on their operation). You can also categorize user-defined nodes in the same way. The categories are:
An instance of the Input node represents an in terminal. For example, if you have included one instance of the Input node, the subflow icon shows one in terminal that you can connect to other nodes in the main flow in the same way that you connect any other node.
You can use more than one input node in a message flow. For more information, see Using more than one input node.
An instance of the Output node represents an out terminal. For example, if you have included two instances of the Output node, the subflow icon shows two out terminals that you can connect to other nodes in the main flow in the same way that you connect any other node.
If you want to transform an input XML message into another format using XMLT style sheets, use the XMLTransformation node. It is imperative that the data can be parsed into a XML message. The result of the transformation is output as a BLOB message. The style sheet, using the rules defined within it, can sort the data; select data elements to include or to exclude based on some criteria, and transform the data into some other data format.
The Xalan-Java transformation engine (http://xml.apache.org/xalan-j) is used as the underlying transformation engine. For details about XMLT, refer to http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt.
You can deploy style sheets and XML files to broker execution groups, to facilitate style sheet and XML file maintenance.