Input node

You can use a subflow for a common task that can be represented by a sequence of message flow nodes. For example, you can create a subflow to increment or decrement a loop counter, or to provide error processing that is common to a number of message flows.

You must use an Input node to provide the In terminal to a subflow; you cannot use a standard input node (a built-in input node such as MQInput, or a user-defined input node).

When you have started your subflow with an Input node, you can connect it to any In terminal on any message flow node, including an Output node.

You can include one or more Input nodes in a subflow. Each Input node that you include provides a terminal through which to introduce messages to the subflow. If you include more than one Input node, you cannot predict the order in which the messages are processed through the subflow.

The Input node is contained in the Construction drawer of the palette, and is represented in the IBM® Integration Toolkit by the following icon:

When you select and include a subflow in a message flow, it is represented by the following icon:

When you include the subflow in a message flow, this icon shows a terminal for each Input node that you include in the subflow, and the name of the terminal (which you can see when you hold the mouse pointer over it) matches the name of that instance of the Input node. Give your Input nodes meaningful names that you can recognize easily when you use their corresponding terminal on the subflow node in your message flow.

Look at the following sample to see how to use this node:

• Error Handler

You can view information about samples only when you use the product documentation that is integrated with the IBM Integration Toolkit or the online product documentation. You can run samples only when you use the product documentation that is integrated with the IBM Integration Toolkit.

When you have put an instance of the Input node into a message flow, you can configure it; see Configuring a message flow node. The properties of the node are displayed in the Properties view.

The Input node terminals are described in the following table.

The following table describes the node properties. The column headed M indicates whether the property is mandatory (marked with an asterisk if you must enter a value when no default is defined); the column headed C indicates whether the property is configurable (you can change the value when you add the message flow to the BAR file to deploy it).

The Input node Description properties are described in the following table.