Built-In Actor Types
Broadway has a large list of built-in Actors that can be added to a flow to create various types of activities. Broadway's built-in Actors are split into categories, where each category includes several Actor types.
The following table presents a list of Actors categories with examples of each category. This is not an exhaustive list of Actors.
Click for more information about the most useful Actors and code examples.
Category Name & Description |
Examples per Category |
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Category Name: Favorites Description: Most commonly used Actors. Favorites is not a separate category. Each Actor in Favorites belongs to a category. Click Actors in Favorites have a |
Const Actor, copies the input value argument to the output value argument. A Const Actor can:
JavaScript Actor, executes the JavaScript provided in the script parameter. The script returns the value of the last line. Click for more information about the JavaScript Actor. |
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Category Name:basic Description: Actors serve as the basic building blocks for creating a Broadway flow. |
ForLoop Actor, iterates over a range of numbers. Logger Actor, writes a message to the log file referencing entries from params and Actor inputs. InnerFlow Actor, executes a Broadway flow. LuFunction Actor, executes Studio function logic. Parameters for the function's execution are taken from input arguments or from the params input argument. Email Actor, sends an email using SMTP interface. Supports email body in HTML format and can send attachments. |
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Category Name: data Description: Various data manipulations, such as accumulate values into a map, build an array or sort the input collection. |
MapBuild Actor, accumulates key/value pairs into a map. Duplicate keys are handled according to the duplicateKeys mode field. |
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Category Name: date/time Description:Various Date and Time manipulation functions, such as DateAdd, DateFormat or Now. |
DateFormat Actor, formats a date into a string.
For example:
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Category Name: db Description: Actions to be performed on a DB interface, such as creating a new table, loading data or executing a DB command. |
DbCommand Actor, performs database commands on a DB command interface. The interface used as input can be:
The DbCommand can be used to create the WITH section where required. DbLoad Actor, loads data into a database using INSERT, UPDATE or UPSERT (if supported). The interface used as input can be the same as for DbCommand Actor.
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Category Name: fabric Description: Actors which execute the Fabric commands. |
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Category Name: generators Description: Actors for generating various types of fake but valid values such as: SSN, email, credit card number. |
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Category Name: images Description: Image manipulation Actors that allow to perform various activities, such as:
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ImageLoad Actor, receives a buffer or buffer stream, and loads the image into memory. ImageSave Actor, encodes the image to a byte buffer with the given format. This can then be transported or saved using DbLoad, FileWrite, Http or other Actors. |
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Category Name: jobs Description: Actors that create Fabric jobs. |
BroadwayJob, Actor that creates a Broadway job InterfaceListener, Actor that creates an Interface Listener job. |
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Category Name: logic Description: Logical operation on Actors A and B which returns a True or False boolean result. Broadway converts the following types of input parameters to booleans:
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And Actor, returns True if and only if both A and B are True. Both A and B must be boolean values or a value that can be converted to a boolean. Elvis Actor, returns A if converted to boolean is True. Otherwise returns B. IfElse Actor, includes the test input to be validated as either True or False. If test is True, return A, else return B. |
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Category Name: masking Description: A group of Actors to mask sensitive information, such as SSN, credit card number, email. It also includes the Actors that can define a sequence. |
Masking is an Actor to generate a random/token data and keep it mapped to input original value. This Actor can wrap any data manufacturing Actor and add the hashing and caching capabilities on the top of it. All other masking Actors are kept for backward compatibility, such as: MaskingCreditCard Actor, generates a fake but valid credit card number similar to the original card's type. MaskingSequence Actor, implements a unique sequence number. |
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Category Name: math Description: Various mathematical functions, such as MathMax, MathMin, Aggregate. |
Aggregate Actor, aggregates values. It receives a number or collection of numbers and calculates the Sum, Count, Average, Min and Max values of this collection. This Actor maintains its state across multiple loop iterations. MathDivMod Actor, returns the divisor and modulo factor of A and B. For example, if A=10 and B=3 then div=3 and mod=1. |
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Category Name: mtable Description: A group of Actors that enable looking up the MTable data either by keys or without them, or loading data to an MTable. |
MTableLookup Actor, fetches data from the mtable, creating indices as needed. |
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Category Name: parsers Description: Various parsers which can be received as input stream in different types of formats, for example, CSV, JSON or XML. |
XmlParser Actor, receives an input stream represented via an iterable collection of blobs or strings. The parser runs until the end of the stream is detected. It returns a collection of parsed objects or a single object if Single is set to True. |
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Category Name: queue Description: Publish / subscribe messages to the queue. |
Publish Actor, publishes messages using a message broker. The inputs are:
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Category Name: stats Description: Actors that gather the flow statistics. |
StatsWriter Actor, sets or increments statistics that can then be read by the StatsReader. StatsReader Actor, reads statistics written by other Actors such as StatsWriter, DbCommand or ErrorHandler. The Actor has two outputs:
For example, if StatsReader is added to the flow after the DbCommand Actor that executes an INSERT query, the StatsReader displays the number of executed and the number of affected records. |
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Category Name: streams Description: Various stream manipulation functions, such as Compress, FileRead or Http. |
FileRead Actor, reads data from a file given in an interface and path. The file is opened lazily when an Actor reads the output stream. Once the file has been fully read, it is closed. If the file is not fully read, it is closed at the end of the flow. Http/HttpJson Actors, send a request to a Web Server. Support streaming payload and results, sending and receiving header parameters. Using this Actor you can call a Web Service and parse its results. StringsToBytes Actor, reads an iterable of strings (or string representation) and converts them to byte arrays using the given character set (for example, UTF-8). The byteOrderMark input argument should be set to true if you need the BOM to be written at the beginning of the buffer, according to the given character set. |
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Category Name: strings Description: Various string manipulation functions, such as Concat, Split or Trim. Graphit and JsonStringify Actors are also included in this category. |
Regex Actor, finds sub-strings in an input string using a regular expression. The Actor tries to find all matches of the pattern within the input string and return them. When using matching groups, the result is the content of the matching group instead of the full match. For example, in the ABCDEF string, the C.E pattern returns [CDE], whereas C(.)E returns [D]. Graphit Actor, executes Graphit logic for data serialization. Parameters for the Graphit execution are taken from input arguments or from the params input argument. |
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Category Name: system Description: System processes and commands to be performed in the file system. |
cp Actor, copies a file. The interface used as input can be:
The output is a number of affected files. Exec Actor, executes a system process and waits for it to be completed. |
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Category Name: testing Description: Actors that check a condition and throw an assersion exception if the condition is not met. |
assertNotNull Actor, throws an assertion error if supplied object is null. assertContains Actor, throws an assertion error if substring cannot be found in string. assertEquals, throws an assertion exceptions if actual does not equal expected. |
in an Actor's description in the Add Actors window to add the Actor to Favorites.
Built-In Actor Types
Broadway has a large list of built-in Actors that can be added to a flow to create various types of activities. Broadway's built-in Actors are split into categories, where each category includes several Actor types.
The following table presents a list of Actors categories with examples of each category. This is not an exhaustive list of Actors.
Click for more information about the most useful Actors and code examples.
Category Name & Description |
Examples per Category |
|
Category Name: Favorites Description: Most commonly used Actors. Favorites is not a separate category. Each Actor in Favorites belongs to a category. Click Actors in Favorites have a |
Const Actor, copies the input value argument to the output value argument. A Const Actor can:
JavaScript Actor, executes the JavaScript provided in the script parameter. The script returns the value of the last line. Click for more information about the JavaScript Actor. |
|
Category Name:basic Description: Actors serve as the basic building blocks for creating a Broadway flow. |
ForLoop Actor, iterates over a range of numbers. Logger Actor, writes a message to the log file referencing entries from params and Actor inputs. InnerFlow Actor, executes a Broadway flow. LuFunction Actor, executes Studio function logic. Parameters for the function's execution are taken from input arguments or from the params input argument. Email Actor, sends an email using SMTP interface. Supports email body in HTML format and can send attachments. |
|
Category Name: data Description: Various data manipulations, such as accumulate values into a map, build an array or sort the input collection. |
MapBuild Actor, accumulates key/value pairs into a map. Duplicate keys are handled according to the duplicateKeys mode field. |
|
Category Name: date/time Description:Various Date and Time manipulation functions, such as DateAdd, DateFormat or Now. |
DateFormat Actor, formats a date into a string.
For example:
|
|
Category Name: db Description: Actions to be performed on a DB interface, such as creating a new table, loading data or executing a DB command. |
DbCommand Actor, performs database commands on a DB command interface. The interface used as input can be:
The DbCommand can be used to create the WITH section where required. DbLoad Actor, loads data into a database using INSERT, UPDATE or UPSERT (if supported). The interface used as input can be the same as for DbCommand Actor.
|
|
Category Name: fabric Description: Actors which execute the Fabric commands. |
|
|
Category Name: generators Description: Actors for generating various types of fake but valid values such as: SSN, email, credit card number. |
|
|
Category Name: images Description: Image manipulation Actors that allow to perform various activities, such as:
|
ImageLoad Actor, receives a buffer or buffer stream, and loads the image into memory. ImageSave Actor, encodes the image to a byte buffer with the given format. This can then be transported or saved using DbLoad, FileWrite, Http or other Actors. |
|
Category Name: jobs Description: Actors that create Fabric jobs. |
BroadwayJob, Actor that creates a Broadway job InterfaceListener, Actor that creates an Interface Listener job. |
|
Category Name: logic Description: Logical operation on Actors A and B which returns a True or False boolean result. Broadway converts the following types of input parameters to booleans:
|
And Actor, returns True if and only if both A and B are True. Both A and B must be boolean values or a value that can be converted to a boolean. Elvis Actor, returns A if converted to boolean is True. Otherwise returns B. IfElse Actor, includes the test input to be validated as either True or False. If test is True, return A, else return B. |
|
Category Name: masking Description: A group of Actors to mask sensitive information, such as SSN, credit card number, email. It also includes the Actors that can define a sequence. |
Masking is an Actor to generate a random/token data and keep it mapped to input original value. This Actor can wrap any data manufacturing Actor and add the hashing and caching capabilities on the top of it. All other masking Actors are kept for backward compatibility, such as: MaskingCreditCard Actor, generates a fake but valid credit card number similar to the original card's type. MaskingSequence Actor, implements a unique sequence number. |
|
Category Name: math Description: Various mathematical functions, such as MathMax, MathMin, Aggregate. |
Aggregate Actor, aggregates values. It receives a number or collection of numbers and calculates the Sum, Count, Average, Min and Max values of this collection. This Actor maintains its state across multiple loop iterations. MathDivMod Actor, returns the divisor and modulo factor of A and B. For example, if A=10 and B=3 then div=3 and mod=1. |
|
Category Name: mtable Description: A group of Actors that enable looking up the MTable data either by keys or without them, or loading data to an MTable. |
MTableLookup Actor, fetches data from the mtable, creating indices as needed. |
|
Category Name: parsers Description: Various parsers which can be received as input stream in different types of formats, for example, CSV, JSON or XML. |
XmlParser Actor, receives an input stream represented via an iterable collection of blobs or strings. The parser runs until the end of the stream is detected. It returns a collection of parsed objects or a single object if Single is set to True. |
|
Category Name: queue Description: Publish / subscribe messages to the queue. |
Publish Actor, publishes messages using a message broker. The inputs are:
|
|
Category Name: stats Description: Actors that gather the flow statistics. |
StatsWriter Actor, sets or increments statistics that can then be read by the StatsReader. StatsReader Actor, reads statistics written by other Actors such as StatsWriter, DbCommand or ErrorHandler. The Actor has two outputs:
For example, if StatsReader is added to the flow after the DbCommand Actor that executes an INSERT query, the StatsReader displays the number of executed and the number of affected records. |
|
Category Name: streams Description: Various stream manipulation functions, such as Compress, FileRead or Http. |
FileRead Actor, reads data from a file given in an interface and path. The file is opened lazily when an Actor reads the output stream. Once the file has been fully read, it is closed. If the file is not fully read, it is closed at the end of the flow. Http/HttpJson Actors, send a request to a Web Server. Support streaming payload and results, sending and receiving header parameters. Using this Actor you can call a Web Service and parse its results. StringsToBytes Actor, reads an iterable of strings (or string representation) and converts them to byte arrays using the given character set (for example, UTF-8). The byteOrderMark input argument should be set to true if you need the BOM to be written at the beginning of the buffer, according to the given character set. |
|
Category Name: strings Description: Various string manipulation functions, such as Concat, Split or Trim. Graphit and JsonStringify Actors are also included in this category. |
Regex Actor, finds sub-strings in an input string using a regular expression. The Actor tries to find all matches of the pattern within the input string and return them. When using matching groups, the result is the content of the matching group instead of the full match. For example, in the ABCDEF string, the C.E pattern returns [CDE], whereas C(.)E returns [D]. Graphit Actor, executes Graphit logic for data serialization. Parameters for the Graphit execution are taken from input arguments or from the params input argument. |
|
Category Name: system Description: System processes and commands to be performed in the file system. |
cp Actor, copies a file. The interface used as input can be:
The output is a number of affected files. Exec Actor, executes a system process and waits for it to be completed. |
|
Category Name: testing Description: Actors that check a condition and throw an assersion exception if the condition is not met. |
assertNotNull Actor, throws an assertion error if supplied object is null. assertContains Actor, throws an assertion error if substring cannot be found in string. assertEquals, throws an assertion exceptions if actual does not equal expected. |
