General

There are a number of general configuration options available to all communication points regardless of their type. These common configuration properties are found on the General tab of the communication point properties dialog.

The options available on the General tab are described in the following sections:

General Details
General Properties

General Details

A communication point is identified on the General tab by the following indicators:

Field	Description
Name	The communication point name is used to identify the communication point in the workspace tree, on routes, and in the Management Console. The name is a display name only, therefore, changing it has no effect on how messages are processed through Rhapsody.
Type	Identifies the type of the communication point. A communication point's Type cannot be changed once it has been created.
State (not labeled)	The state of a communication point: `Running`, `Stopped`, or `Not Configured`. An icon indicating the current state is displayed next to the communication point icon.

General Properties

A communication point's General Properties determine how it connects to an external system and exchanges messages with it:

Field	Description
Startup State	The startup state of a communication point determines whether or not it is automatically started when the Rhapsody engine is started. It also allows some control over the order that communication points and routes are started in. There are six available options for the startup state: `Manual Restart Required` - the communication point is not automatically started by Rhapsody. It needs to be manually restarted by an administrator. `Startup First`, `Startup Second`, `Startup Third`, `Startup Fourth`, `Startup Last` - enable the startup order to be controlled. All communication points and routes with the same startup order are started at approximately the same time. Rhapsody normally waits for all communication points and routes in a given startup order to start before progressing to the next level. When a communication point or route cannot be configured and therefore is not runnable, it is ignored and the startup order progression is continued.
Start only if previously running	This checkbox is only available when the Startup State is not set to `Manual Restart Required`. When this checkbox is selected, Rhapsody only starts the communication point after an engine restart if the communication point was running beforehand. If the communication point is not started because it was not previously running, then a log message is generated to that effect in `<RhapsodyInstallDirectory>\logs\log.txt`.
Input Message Encoding	Rhapsody internally maintains a body encoding attribute for all messages containing the name of the Java encoding for the message body. When components request the message body as a string, or request the parsed message body, this body encoding attribute is used to decode the message. By default, the input encoding is set to `Unknown / Not Set`. The `Detect Character Encoding` option enables the detection of character encodings using byte order marks, well-known patterns (that is, nulls in the message), or XML messages. The remaining items will display their long names as provided by the engine. The character encoding is saved as a general communication point property called `InputCharacterEncoding` and is saved in the RLC using the same name. The value of this property is set to a character encoding scheme identifier provided by the engine.

Field

Description

Startup State

The startup state of a communication point determines whether or not it is automatically started when the Rhapsody engine is started. It also allows some control over the order that communication points and routes are started in.

There are six available options for the startup state:

Manual Restart Required - the communication point is not automatically started by Rhapsody. It needs to be manually restarted by an administrator.
Startup First, Startup Second, Startup Third, Startup Fourth, Startup Last - enable the startup order to be controlled. All communication points and routes with the same startup order are started at approximately the same time.

Rhapsody normally waits for all communication points and routes in a given startup order to start before progressing to the next level. When a communication point or route cannot be configured and therefore is not runnable, it is ignored and the startup order progression is continued.

Start only if previously running

This checkbox is only available when the Startup State is not set to Manual Restart Required. When this checkbox is selected, Rhapsody only starts the communication point after an engine restart if the communication point was running beforehand. If the communication point is not started because it was not previously running, then a log message is generated to that effect in <RhapsodyInstallDirectory>\logs\log.txt.

Input Message Encoding

Rhapsody internally maintains a body encoding attribute for all messages containing the name of the Java encoding for the message body. When components request the message body as a string, or request the parsed message body, this body encoding attribute is used to decode the message. By default, the input encoding is set to Unknown / Not Set.

The Detect Character Encoding option enables the detection of character encodings using byte order marks, well-known patterns (that is, nulls in the message), or XML messages. The remaining items will display their long names as provided by the engine.

The character encoding is saved as a general communication point property called InputCharacterEncoding and is saved in the RLC using the same name. The value of this property is set to a character encoding scheme identifier provided by the engine.