Parameter passing is a general subject not adequately covered

• User impact:

  High
• Affects Docs:

  Yes
• Similar Issues:

  None

There are several situations where someone using various Mule connectors and transports may wish to pass parameters to other components. HTTP(S) is one situation, for example, especially when POSTing parameters. Other situations include XMPP, Mule's VM mechanism, and pretty much all web services.

While the documentation on these transports is generally pretty straightforward (at least, it is straightforward on what it covers!), there is practically no discussion on how to process parameters in any of the transports. For example: suppose someone wants to pass a payload to a VM transport that will become a string parameter for a POJO? Or what if someone was passing a JMS message that will be converted into parameters to be passed to a Web Service? Not only is there practically no explanation on how to actually process the VM payload or the JMS message, but there is absolutely no description of how to even create dynamic parameters for the outbound service or for the POJO. At best, the examples show how to receive a specific message and as a result of that message go to an outbound endpoint using pre- set parameters. Nowhere in the documentation is there a description of how to receive a message with user- set parameters, then somehow set those parameters in the outbound endpoint.

Parameter processing is a very large subject which is very important for developers to understand in order to use any ESB for more than just toy applications. That this subject is so thoroughly ignored in your documentation is a major flaw that creates problems for all of your users.