FreeMarker

Table of Contents

URI format
Options
Headers
FreeMarker Context
Hot reloading
Dynamic templates
Samples
The Email Sample
See Also

The freemarker: component allows for processing a message using a FreeMarker template. This can be ideal when using Templating to generate responses for requests.

Maven users will need to add the following dependency to their pom.xml for this component:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.camel</groupId>
    <artifactId>camel-freemarker</artifactId>
    <version>x.x.x</version> <!-- use the same version as your Camel core version -->
</dependency>

URI format

freemarker:templateName[?options]

Where templateName is the classpath-local URI of the template to invoke; or the complete URL of the remote template (eg: file://folder/myfile.ftl).

You can append query options to the URI in the following format, ?option=value&option=value&…

Options

The Freemarker component supports 1 options which are listed below.

{% raw %}

Name	Java Type	Description
configuration	`Configuration`	To use an existing freemarker.template.Configuration instance as the configuration.

{% endraw %}

The Freemarker component supports 6 endpoint options which are listed below:

{% raw %}

Name	Group	Default	Java Type	Description
resourceUri	producer		`String`	Required Path to the resource or a reference to lookup a bean in the Registry to use as the resource
configuration	producer		`Configuration`	Sets the Freemarker configuration to use
contentCache	producer	`false`	`boolean`	Sets whether to use resource content cache or not
encoding	producer		`String`	Sets the encoding to be used for loading the template file.
templateUpdateDelay	producer		`int`	Number of seconds the loaded template resource will remain in the cache.
synchronous	advanced	`false`	`boolean`	Sets whether synchronous processing should be strictly used or Camel is allowed to use asynchronous processing (if supported).

{% endraw %}

Headers

Headers set during the FreeMarker evaluation are returned to the message and added as headers. This provides a mechanism for the FreeMarker component to return values to the Message.

An example: Set the header value of fruit in the FreeMarker template:

${request.setHeader('fruit', 'Apple')}

The header, fruit, is now accessible from the message.out.headers.

FreeMarker Context

Camel will provide exchange information in the FreeMarker context (just a Map). The Exchange is transferred as:

key	value
`exchange`	The `Exchange` itself.
`exchange.properties`	The `Exchange` properties.
`headers`	The headers of the In message.
`camelContext`	The Camel Context.
`request`	The In message.
`body`	The In message body.
`response`	The Out message (only for InOut message exchange pattern).

From Camel 2.14, you can setup your custom FreeMarker context in the message header with the key "CamelFreemarkerDataModel" just like this

Map<String, Object> variableMap = new HashMap<String, Object>();
variableMap.put("headers", headersMap);
variableMap.put("body", "Monday");
variableMap.put("exchange", exchange);
exchange.getIn().setHeader("CamelFreemarkerDataModel", variableMap);

Hot reloading

The FreeMarker template resource is by default not hot reloadable for both file and classpath resources (expanded jar). If you set contentCache=false, then Camel will not cache the resource and hot reloading is thus enabled. This scenario can be used in development.

Dynamic templates

Camel provides two headers by which you can define a different resource location for a template or the template content itself. If any of these headers is set then Camel uses this over the endpoint configured resource. This allows you to provide a dynamic template at runtime.

Header	Type	Description	Support Version
FreemarkerConstants.FREEMARKER_RESOURCE	org.springframework.core.io.Resource	The template resource	⇐ 2.1
FreemarkerConstants.FREEMARKER_RESOURCE_URI	String	A URI for the template resource to use instead of the endpoint configured.	>= 2.1
FreemarkerConstants.FREEMARKER_TEMPLATE	String	The template to use instead of the endpoint configured.	>= 2.1

Samples

For example you could use something like:

from("activemq:My.Queue").
  to("freemarker:com/acme/MyResponse.ftl");

To use a FreeMarker template to formulate a response for a message for InOut message exchanges (where there is a JMSReplyTo header).

If you want to use InOnly and consume the message and send it to another destination you could use:

from("activemq:My.Queue").
  to("freemarker:com/acme/MyResponse.ftl").
  to("activemq:Another.Queue");

And to disable the content cache, e.g. for development usage where the .ftl template should be hot reloaded:

from("activemq:My.Queue").
  to("freemarker:com/acme/MyResponse.ftl?contentCache=false").
  to("activemq:Another.Queue");

And a file-based resource:

from("activemq:My.Queue").
  to("freemarker:file://myfolder/MyResponse.ftl?contentCache=false").
  to("activemq:Another.Queue");

In Camel 2.1 it’s possible to specify what template the component should use dynamically via a header, so for example:

from("direct:in").
  setHeader(FreemarkerConstants.FREEMARKER_RESOURCE_URI).constant("path/to/my/template.ftl").
  to("freemarker:dummy");

The Email Sample

In this sample we want to use FreeMarker templating for an order confirmation email. The email template is laid out in FreeMarker as:

Dear ${headers.lastName}, ${headers.firstName}

Thanks for the order of ${headers.item}.

Regards Camel Riders Bookstore
${body}

And the java code: