Month: November 2014

Rule Engine for Node.js

Based on my original blog posting, this posting introduces a ported Javascript version of my rule engine, for Node.js. I have the requirement to use a rule engine. I want something light weight and fairly simple, yet powerful. While there are products out there which are super good, I don't want something with the big learning overhead. And, I fancied writing my own! Here are my few basic requirements: Use some kind of expression language to write the rules, It should be possible to store rules in a database, Rules need a priority, so that only the best can be fired, It should also be possible to fire all matching rules, Rules should evaluate against one input which can be an object like a tree, containing all the information which rules need to evaluate against Predefined actions which are programmed in the system should be executed when certains rules fire. So to help clarify those requirements, imagine the following examples: 1) In some forum system, the administrator needs to be able to configure when emails are sent. Here, I would write some rules like "when the config flag called sendUserEmail is set to true, send an email to the user" and "when the config flag called sendAdministratorEmail is true and the user has posted less than 5 postings, send an email to the administrator". 2) A tarif system needs to be configurable, so that the best tarif can be offered to customers. For that, I could write rules like these:…

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