During the analysis of an incoming document, one or more user exits can be invoked to examine parts of the document, and to optionally transform those parts. An example might be a name or address validation exit that gets called each time such a set of elements appears in the document. The same exit logic might apply to all documents, so that all names and addresses in a complete system are validated in the same manner.

Validation exits are attributes of the document, not of the listener. As such, their specification appears only in DOCUMENT entries in the dictionary, either in the DOCUMENT sections or in the LISTENER sections.

The dictionary entry is:

<in_validation file=<path to rules document>\> 

or

<in_validation>name</in_validation> 

where name is defined in the dictionary aliases. Usually, validation exits, as all exits, are configured using the configuration console.

These statements cause the appropriate rules to be invoked each time that the document is processed. A complete discussion of rules and how to write rules validation exits in Java is discussed in iWay Service Manager Rules System. Rules can be configured for a document using the configuration console.