Creating A Custom Camel Component

While Camel supports an ever growing number of components, you might have a need to create a custom component. This could be to either promote reuse across projects, customize an existing component or provide a simplified interface to an existing system. Whatever the reason, here is an overview of the options that are available within the Camel framework...

first, consider just creating a Bean or Processor

Before you jump in and create a component, consider just creating a simple class to handle your custom logic. Behind the scenes, all components are just Processors with a bunch of lifecycle support around them.  Beans and Processors are simple, streamlined and easy to manage.

using a Bean...

from(uri).bean(MyBean.class);

... 

public class MyBean {
    public void doSomething(Exchange exchange) {
      //do something...
   }

}

using a Processor...

from(uri).process(new MyProcessor());

... 

public class MyProcessor implements Processor {
    public void process(Exchange exchange) throws Exception {
        //do something... 

    }
}

create a custom component

If you decide to go down this route, you should start by start by using a Maven archetype to stub out a new component project for you.

mvn archetype:generate

    -DarchetypeGroupId=org.apache.camel.archetypes

    -DarchetypeArtifactId=camel-archetype-component

    -DarchetypeVersion=2.9.2

    -DarchetypeRepository=https://repository.apache.org/content/groups/snapshots-group

    -DgroupId=org.apache.camel.component

    -DartifactId=camel-ben

This will create a new Maven component project that contains an example HelloWorld component as seen here...

The following core classes are created and have the following responsibilities:

• HelloWorldComponent
• endpoint factory which implements createEndpoint()
• HelloWorldEndpoint
• producer/consumer factory which implements createConsumer(), createProducer(), createExchange()
• HelloWorldConsumer
• acts as a service to consumes request at the start of a route
• HelloWorldProducer
• acts as a service consumer to dispatch outgoing requests and receive incoming replies
• Exchange
• encapsulate the in/out message payloads and meta data about the data flowing between endpoints
• Message
• represent the message payload
• their is an IN and OUT message for each exchange 

So, how do all these classes/method actually work?  The best way to get your head around this is to load the project into Eclipse (or IntelliJ) and debug the unit test.  This will allow you to step into the route initialization and message processing to trace the flow.

Consumer Lifecycle

When you define a route that uses your new component as a consumer, like this

from("helloworld:foo").to("log:result");

It does the following:

• creates a HelloWorldComponent instance (one per CamelContext)
• calls HelloWorldComponent createEndpoint() with the given URI
• creates a HelloWorldEndpoint instance (one per route reference)
• creates a HelloWorldConsumer instance (one per route reference)
• register the route with the CamelContext and call doStart() on the Consumer
• consumers will then start in one of the following modes:
• event driven - wait for message to trigger route
• polling consumer - manually polls a resource for events
• scheduled polling consumer - events automatically generated by timer
• custom threading - custom management of the event lifecyle

Producer Lifecycle

When you define a route that uses your new component as a producer, like this

from("direct:start").to("helloworld:foo");

It does the following:

• creates a HelloWorldComponent instance (one per CamelContext)
  
• calls HelloWorldComponent createEndpoint() with the given URI
• creates a HelloWorldEndpoint instance (one per route reference)
• creates a HelloWorldProducer instance (one per route reference)
• register the route with the CamelContext and start the route consumer
• the Producer's process(Exchange) method is then executed
• generally, this will decorate the Exchange by interfacing with some external resource (file, jms, database, etc)

Other Resources 
 

http://camel.apache.org/writing-components.html

http://fusesource.com/docs/mirrors/camel/developers/writing-components.html
http://fusesource.com/docs/mirrors/camel/documentation/user-guide/creating-a-new-camel-component.html