International Business Machines Corporation

Barbara Regine Proske

Timothy James Graser

Jan Olof Engstrom

Brent Allen Carlson

Ulf Jesper Thomas Lindblom

In an object oriented computer system, a framework mechanism defines behavior that may be accessed by different processing levels in the framework. A shared policy corresponding to the behavior is defined. A policy usage view is defined that includes one or more methods for accessing attributes required by the shared policy. A view adapter is also defined that provides an implementation for invoking the methods on the policy usage view. When a processing level needs the behavior defined by the shared policy, the methods on the view adapter are invoked, which retrieve the required attributes for the shared policy.

Apparatus and method for providing common behavior across different processing levels in an object oriented framework

In an object oriented computer system, a framework mechanism defines an infrastructure for allowing a user to couple processes in the framework together in any suitable way to define a desired process flow. A user first defines a static object structure that corresponds to the specific process flow from one process to the next. The processes in the framework may be flexibly coupled in any suitable order, so a process does not have knowledge of its predecessor or successor processes. Thus, at run-time, a process determines the next step in the process flow from the static object structure. Once a process determines its subsequent process, a client may then create the next process and invoke methods on one or more objects corresponding to the newly-created process. Each process thus determines at run-time the next step in the process flow from the static object structure that the user statically defined to configure the process flow, which defines the desired processing environment.

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Munich, Georgia

Barbara Regine Proske