The Detour from the EIP patterns allows you to send messages through additional steps if a control condition is met. It can be useful for turning on extra validation, testing, debugging code when needed.

In this example we essentially have a route like from("direct:start").to("mock:result") with a conditional detour to the mock:detour endpoint in the middle of the route..

from("direct:start").choice()
    .when().method("controlBean", "isDetour").to("mock:detour").end()
    .to("mock:result");                

Using the Spring XML Extensions

<route>
  <from uri="direct:start"/>
    <choice>
      <when>
        <method bean="controlBean" method="isDetour"/>
	<to uri="mock:detour"/>
      </when>
    </choice>
    <to uri="mock:result"/>
  </split>
</route>

whether the detour is turned on or off is decided by the ControlBean. So, when the detour is on the message is routed to mock:detour and then mock:result. When the detour is off, the message is routed to mock:result.

For full details, check the example source here:

camel-core/src/test/java/org/apache/camel/processor/DetourTest.java