Use of MessageExchange status

[William Blackburn]

I'm trying to figure out the use of the 'status' property of  
MessageExchange especially regarding servicemix Pojo components. Most  
of the examples I've seen show using the convenience methods 'answer'  
'done' and 'fail' to set this status appropriately upon completion of  
the work done by the component.

Practically speaking, I cannot see differences in behavior regarding  
this status. Indeed in my early testing I never set it at all, and  
nothing seemed worse for wear.

I was hoping to discover that failing to set this status to a  
completed state would result in further attempts to deliver the  
message, but this is not the case.

My question is, what do these states signify, and which of  
servicemix' internals is using the status? Secondly, is there a  
configuration of servicemix that would allow a component to receive  
repeated delivery attempts of an exchange that has not been set to a  
completed state?

Sorry to keep harping on this subject, but I'm desperate - thanks for  
any help,

BJ