General

General
What tools are provided with the Generic Workflow Description Language Toolbox?

Currently the toolbox contains the XML Schema of the Generic Workflow Descpription Language, and an XML parser Java library for creating, modifying and parsing GWorkflowDL documents. In addition some analysis tools as well as an event infrastructure for distributing changes in GWorkflowDL documents using xupdate is provided.

GWorkflowDL concept

GWorkflowDL concept
What is "GWorkflowDL"?

GWorkflowDL is an acronym for "Generic Workflow Description Language". The GWorkflowDL is an XML-based description language for Grid workflows developed within the K-Wf Grid project.

What are these side effects? Do we have to assign a side effect for each operation?

No, you do not have to assign a side effect for each operation. We need this side effects just in order to be able to automatically compose a workflow that contains web service operations without real response values. For example: operation "void A.store()" writes its output data to a SQL database and returns without any return value. Then we need some side effect, e.g. "DataXY stored in SQL database" in order to use this operation in a workflow. The operation "String A.getData()" however does not need any side effect.

Why do the tokens on the input places contain real data?

We need tokens with real data in order to enact concrete workflows. In this case we have different (instances of) workflows for different input instances. However it is also possible to put an abstract token without any contents onto a place. Then some refinement tool or the user must provide the real values before running the workflow.

What is the owl attribute meant for?

The owl attribute can be used in order to annotate the corresponding element with some meta data. In the K-Wf Grid project we use this attribute in order to refer to a certain ontologic property. This property is then used in an RDQL query to the Grid Organizational Memory (kind of registry) for retrieving additional information about the element.