A framework for processing active documents

Business rules express business policies, define business terms and business processes in a declarative manner. In this paper, we propose a framework for processing active documents. The active documents are XML-based business documents that include both data and business rules. We separate business rules embedded in business documents from application logic. The business rules are represented explicitly in Prolog. The Prolog rules are translated into XML documents that are executable, in an inference engine. As a result, the XML documents can be used in heterogeneous rule-based applications and workflow management systems in particular.