Using Spring Expression Language to invoke static methods in Flowable

Flowable Engine
1

While using Spring Expression Language in flowable to invoke non-static methods works fine, e.g.

#{VariableName.matches('\\s+\\w+\\s+')}

it does not seem possible to invoke static methods, e.g.

#{T(java.time.LocalDateTime).parse(VariableName).isAfter(T(java.time.LocalDateTime).now())}

fails with:

org.flowable.common.engine.impl.javax.el.ELException: Could not resolve function 'T'

Am I doing it wrong or is it just not possible?

Thank you very much in advance!

Edit:

As workaround I tried using constructors, e.g.

#{new java.text.SimpleDateFormat('yyyy-MM-ddHH:mm:ss').parse(VariableName).after(new java.util.Date())}

but this fails with:

org.flowable.common.engine.impl.de.odysseus.el.tree.TreeBuilderException: Error parsing '#{new java.text.SimpleDateFormat('yyyy-MM-ddHH:mm:ss').parse(VarAttr01).after(new java.util.Date())}': syntax error at position 6, encountered 'java', expected '}'

2

To answer my own question: Only the bean part of the Spring Expression language is awailable in Flowable.

3

In expressions, Juel is currently the expression language that is being used.

If you want to swap that with Spring Expression, you’d have to swap the low-level expression factories, manager, etc. on the engine level.