Actor Inheritance Mechanism

Overview

A Broadway Actor can be extended to create a new Actor type using the Export Actor functionality.

When an Actor is exported, a new Actor inherits its logic and arguments and also extends it with additional functionality whereby specific business logic can be reused in different Broadway flows. For example, to format all dates using the same pattern, set a specific pattern in the DateFormat Actor and then export the Actor to reuse it in various Broadway flows.

When exporting the Actor, each input and output argument can be set as hidden or final.

• Setting an argument as hidden, the ancestor's argument is hidden in the inherited Actor. For example, when an argument is irrelevant for the inherited Actor's functionality.
• Setting an argument as final, the inherited Actor cannot change the ancestor's argument value.

This setting is optional. If hidden or final arguments are not set, the argument remains as is in the inherited Actor.

This article describes how to extend an Actor or to modify an extended Actor using the Export Actor functionality. To learn about more advanced options for Actors inheritance, refer to the Actor Editor article.

How Do I Export an Actor?

1. Add an Actor to the flow and update its arguments and/or logic. For example, add a DateFormat Actor and set its format input argument to 'E dd-MM-yy HH:mm a' and the time zone to Israel.

2. Click > Export Actor in the Actor's context menu to open the Export Actor pop-up.

   

3. Populate the new Actor's Name as myDateFormat.

4. Optional: override the Tag to create a new Actor in a new (different) category.

5. Optional: set the hidden or final value for each input or output argument.

6. Click Submit.

The new myDateFormat Actor is created and inherits from the DateFormat Actor type. The myDateFormat Actor can be reused by any Broadway flow in Fabric.

Once the inherited Actor is created, it is added to the list of Actors and can be added to a Stage in the current or another flow. In addition, the . actor file of the inherited Actor is added to the project tree.

The Actor's input and output arguments in the Properties window can be filtered using the Parameter's filter to display only the inherited Actor's arguments, or only the ancestor's arguments or all.

How Do I Modify an Inherited Actor?

An inherited Actor can be modified for two reasons:

• To update the behavior of the exported Actor due to changed requirements.
• To extend the behavior of the exported Actor to create an additional level of inheritance.

The difference between the two reasons is whether the inherited Actor is overridden or not. If the Actor needs to be updated, it is overridden.

To override an extended Actor, do the following:

1. Click > Export Actor in the Actor's context menu to open the Export Actor pop-up.

2. Check override current. The name is prepopulated with the Actor's name and is read-only.

   

3. Optional: override the Tag to create an Actor in a new (different) category.

4. Optional: set the hidden or final value for each input or output argument.

5. Click Submit to save the changes.

To extend the behavior of the exported Actor, do the following:

1. Click > Export Actor in the Actor's context menu to open the Export Actor pop-up.

   

2. Populate the new Actor's name.

3. Optional: override the Tag to create an Actor in a new (different) category.

4. Optional: set the hidden or final value for each input or output argument.

5. Click Submit to save the changes.