Deriving file path in communication channel depending on environment

Question

We have received this request:
======begin request======
As you know transporting communication channels is a tedious affair
that consists of exporting and importing objects, manual steps to
modify the communication channel for the target system and then
activation. The process of manual modification of the communication
channel after it has been transported is particularly subject to human
error.
Could you please investigate using dynamic/logical names for such
things as:
Directory names
Filenames
Any thing else that can be derived dynamically, or set logically.
======end request======
An example would be a directory path in a file adapter:
in dev: <drive>/dev
in prod: <drive>/prd
We don't want to reconfigure the channel on transport. Value mapping
is not an alternative as we would have to maintain a table anyway and
use a custom function to derive. Dynamic Configuration in a map
requires a custom function and lack of flexibility. Adapter Specific
Message Attributes don't really help.
Is there some way environment variables can be accessed and configured in a communication channel?

Answer 1

Hey Dave,
reconfiguring Adapters after Integration Directory objects transport is a necessary step, since the addresses/ports of production environments will almost always be different.
Nevertheless, you will need to manually reinsert the path information in Prod File adapter, and there you could use "prod" instead of "dev".
A possible workaround to make it a little more "automatic" would be to refer to the Business System name in the File path, using variable substitution. In this case, for example, use the variable "dir" in the variable substitution table, refering to the property "message:receiver_service" (without quotes), and in the path field, use something like "/%dir/" (also, without quotes).
Regards,
Henrique.