Rules Engine - Updating JavaFact's

Question

Hi.
We have started building some rules against a single JavaFact class. Around half way through building the rules we realised that a new 'business function' was required in the JavaFact.
I can not find any way of updating the JavaFact without actually deleting all rules which depend on the fact. Deleting the rules allows me to delete the fact from the rules engine and then add my updated .jar file / java class as a new JavaFact.
Is there another way to update the JavaFact to display new functions within the Java class without going through all this destruction!?
Thanks
Steve

Answer 1

More explanation:
1) If you want to change the name of a property in the Java class, you need to recreate any rules that use it, since it's essentially a different property.
2) If you want to change the type of a property, you must first remove any references to that property in the rules (but not necesarily the fact type itself), then remove the property entirely from the Java class, reimport the class without the property, then add the property back to the class with the new type, and reimport the class again.
3) non-property methods (i.e., ones that aren't get and set) can always be reimported regardless of whether or not there is a return type change. However, if the return type is changed, any rule patterns that use this function will be invalid. However, you will not see that they are invalid until you attempt to validate/save a rule again, so be careful about changing type.