Minimum File Age Oracle SOA File/FTP Adapter Property

Oracle SOA File or the FTP adapter comes equipped with several properties during design time that can be used to meet the project requirements. Minimum File Age is one such property though may not be used all the time during the design of the File/FTP adapter components in the composite but when used, it does play a significant role in the way the files are picked from the File/FTP server.

Important points to be noted regarding the Minimum File Age Property:

• Minimum Age is applicable only in case of a File/FTP poller operation (Read or the GET)
• Minimum Age value is always specified in units of seconds in the File or the FTP JCA file of your composite though you may set the property using a different time unit in the File/FTP configuration wizard.
• The property more commonly used to process large files that takes longer time by the application to write to the File/FTP server location from where the File/FTP adapter polls it.
• When Minimum File Age property is set, the adapter takes into account the file modification time in order to pick the file.

Significance of Minimum File Age

Let me illustrate it with an example - Consider a use case, where you have multiple files with varying size written onto the FTP server location by some application. The large files may take more time to have them completely written on the FTP server path. During the time such large files are being written to the file location, the file modification time keeps changing.The FTP poller of the composite polling for a file on this file location with minimum file age unset(or set to zero) the poller may pick the file that's corrupt or invalid.   To avoid this, minimum age need to be set to an appropriate value in the FTP Adapter, that way only those files that are completely written are picked by the adapter for further processing.

The Minimum File Age value can be specified in the same screen of the File/FTP Adapter configuration wizard screen where you mention the polling frequency (as shown above)