Debugging Drools inside an EJB in eclipse

Question

I am currently debugging a web application which uses a drools ruleset inside an EJB to process business rules. It's deployed inside a JBoss server. I've configured eclipse to run the server so I could use Debug on Server functionality of eclipse.

When I reach the class that fires the drools ruleset, the server loses focus and returns after all the rules are fired. Is there a way where I could trace what rules are being fired? Right now, what I do is put logs inside the *.drl files so I know where the application is inside the rules engine.

Answer 1

you can get the generated java source code of any rule when you add a file with name drools.packagebuilder.conf to your %USERHOME% directory. The file must contain the following instruction:

drools.dump.dir = d:/myDroolsJavaSourceCode

The directory d:/myDroolsJavaSourceCode - Directory (or any other given name) must exist otherwise the Drools Packagebuild will stop execution.

Then you can add this directory to your Eclipse Environment as new project (probably you have to remove the flag 'Default Location' to choose the 'myDroolJavaSourceCode'). Then you can open the file in Eclipse and set break points in the editor.

May be you must attach the directory also during debugging execution twice.

Best regards!

Christof

Answer 2

As far as I know you can't debug drl file. What we did was to encapsulate the logic of when and then in a method, so that you can at least debug that.

Maddy

Answer 3

What I did is I downloaded the sources for drools-engine and compiled the drl files to their java sources. When you run the app, you'll have an option to attach sources when the break point reaches the engine. It's still hard to trace the rules that are fired (multiple rules from different drls can be fired) but it's better than just sysout logging.