FEEL Engine Custom Functions

Camunda Platform provides a wrapper for the FEEL Scala Engine to implement Custom Functions, which can be called in expressions and unary tests.

Custom Function Behavior

Please note that the Custom Function Mechanism of the Standalone FEEL Scala Engine might behave differently.

You can add Custom Functions to the Process Engine (or the Standalone DMN Engine) only programmatically through a Process Engine Plugin. Read more about it in the section about how to Register Custom Function Providers.

Implement a Custom Function

To implement a Custom Function, create a sub-class of FeelCustomFunctionProvider.

The following code example shows how to implement a Custom Function:

import org.camunda.bpm.dmn.feel.impl.scala.function.CustomFunction;
import org.camunda.bpm.dmn.feel.impl.scala.function.FeelCustomFunctionProvider;

import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Optional;

public class CustomFunctionProvider implements FeelCustomFunctionProvider {

  protected Map<String, CustomFunction> functions = new HashMap<>();

  public CustomFunctionProvider() {
    CustomFunction function = CustomFunction.create()
        .setParams("x", "y")
        .setFunction(args -> { 
          long argX = (long) args.get(0);
          long argY = (long) args.get(1);
          
          return argX + argY; 
        })
        .build();

    functions.put("myFunction", function);
  }

  @Override
  public Optional<CustomFunction> resolveFunction(String functionName) {
    return Optional.ofNullable(functions.get(functionName));
  }

  @Override
  public Collection<String> getFunctionNames() {
    return functions.keySet();
  }

}

When calling CustomFunction.create(), a builder is returned that you can use to configure the Custom Function.

The builder has the following configuration options:

  • #setParams(String... params)
    • Defines the parameter names of the Custom Function
    • Passed arguments in FEEL must not follow a strict order when calling the parameter name explicitly: myFunction(y: 5, x: 3)
  • #enableVarargs()
    • Enables variable arguments
    • When enabled, the function can have variable arguments for the last parameter
    • The last argument is of type list
  • #setFunction(Function<List<Object>, Object> function)
    • Passes an object of type java.util.function.Function with a list of objects as arguments and an object as the return value
    • Cannot be used together with #setReturnValue
  • #setReturnValue(Object result)
    • Sets the return value
    • The return value is defined on the registration of the function and cannot be changed later on
    • Cannot be used together with #setFunction

Register Custom Function Providers

You can register the Custom Function Providers using a configuration property.

Process Engine

You can register Custom Function Providers in the Process Engine Configuration with the help of the property dmnFeelCustomFunctionProviders using a Process Engine Plugin.

Standalone DMN Engine

The DMN Engine has a property feelCustomFunctionProviders of type List in the DefaultDmnEngineConfiguration to register Custom Function Providers.

Type Handling

This section describes which argument types are passed into a Custom Function and which types you can return.

Argument Types

All Java types listed in the “Return Types” section of the FEEL Type Handling documentation can be passed into a Custom Function.

Return Types

All Java types listed in the “Return Types” section of the FEEL Type Handling documentation plus the types listed in the FEEL Data Types documentation can be returned by a Custom Function.

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