Apache Camel XML configuration rules and restrictions

Question

I am learning Camel and trying to integrate it with Spring Boot applications. From what I've read there appear to be two main ways to configure the Camel routes (and other related entities): 1) via Java DSL, or 2) via XML DSL. We don't think the Java DSL approach will work for us, as it doesn't seem that it would allow dynamic route definitions. Maybe I'm wrong? If dynamic routing can somehow be done using Java DSL and whatever, I'd like to know about it.

So, I'm focusing on configuring the routes in XML, where we should have a little more flexibility. The idea is that a given application (or service) could be handed a constructed XML route configuration at deploy-time that would specify the details of that service's routing.

The first question I have is how can we indicate to Camel (or Spring Boot and Camel) what/where the configuration file(s) are? Does it expect specific file naming and/or project location, or is it more flexible? Can it be broken into separate files?

By the way, we configure our Spring Boot applications via a combination of Java-based bean configuration and an application.yml file. We don't use XML for Spring Boot configuration.

I've poked around in a number of places on the Camel site (https://camel.apache.org/) but haven't found much information on this subject. The emphasis definitely favors the Java DSL approach.

Answer 1

There is a spring boot example with XML DSL at https://github.com/apache/camel-spring-boot/tree/master/examples/camel-example-spring-boot-xml

You can use property placeholders in your Camel routes that can be configured via spring boot configuration (eg application.properties etc).

From Camel pov, then XML or Java can be equally dynamic. You can remove/add routes at runtime. But mind that its not always a good thing to do dynamic changes in production, without knowing if the changes works.