ILOG JRules User Guide > Writing Rules > Concepts > Anatomy of a Rule Artifact

You can write rules using business rule artifacts and technical rule artifacts.

There are three types of business rule artifact:

You create business rule artifacts using the Business Action Language (BAL) and the vocabulary. The BAL is set up to automatically translate to the ILOG Rule Language (IRL). For business rules, the translation is a straightforward business rule to IRL mapping. For decision tables, rules are based on rows and for decision trees, they are based on nodes. For an example of this more complex mapping, see Decision Table to IRL Mapping.

You create technical rules and functions using IRL.

Business Rule Artifact Building Blocks

Business rule artifacts are made up of combinations of modifiable building blocks. These building blocks represent vocabulary elements, ruleset parameters, ruleset variables, and BAL constructs and operators. For example, in the following rule statement, the building block the current load is a business term of the vocabulary; is more than is a BAL operator; and 5000 is a value:

if
   the current load is more than 5000

A business term may be part of a phrase. For example, to complete the following phrase you also need to select the business term <a customer>:

the age of <a customer>

In a business rule, you can use all the elements of the vocabulary, and all the BAL constructs and operators.

Business Rule

In a decision table, you can see business terms, phrases and BAL operators when you edit the condition columns, and you can see values and constants in the cells of the table.

Decision Table

In a decision tree, you can see business terms, phrases, BAL operators, values and constants when you edit branches. The following diagram shows values, constants and action phrases:

Decision Tree

Technical Rule Artifact Building Blocks

Technical rules are composed of IRL keywords, BOM elements in their code form, values, and constants.

Technical Rule

Related Concepts

Business Rules
Decision Tables
Decision Trees
Technical Rules
Vocabulary

Related Tasks

Creating Business Rules
Working With Decision Tables
Working With Decision Trees
Working with Technical Rules

Related Reference

BAL Constructs
BAL Operators
BAL Literals
IRL Keywords

Related Samples and Tutorials

Tutorial: Creating Business Rules