International Business Machines Corporation

Hiroshi Tsuji

Vladimir Klicnik

Lok Tin Loi

John Mourra

Kevin Quan

Sebastian Carbajales

Grant D Taylor

Crystal J Su

C Lorne Parsons

Anita O L Leung

The present invention provides an extensible dependency management framework and method. Specifically, the present invention provides dependency management handler(s) and dispatcher(s) (e.g., revalidation and/or refactoring). The handlers are created and registered by users of the framework. When a change to a resource is detected, a notification is received by a dispatcher from an external caller. Upon receipt, the dispatcher will query an index to identify dependents, and then call a dependency management handler associated with the changed resource to obtain and implement updates for the dependents. In so doing, a list of the dependents will be provided to the dependency management handler.

Extensible dependency management framework and method

A volatile memory manager of a data handling system can be configured to convert the one-to-many external reference into an external reference that references the common ancestor node of the contiguous region. Specific pathing and/or termination conditions can be contained in a Relationship_Path parameter of the external reference. The hierarchical data structure can also be loaded into volatile memory by the volatile memory manager as data structure references. The volatile memory manager can be further configured to perform various functions utilizing the external and data structure references.

Optimizing the storage of one-to-many external references to contiguous regions of hierarchical data structures

The present invention provides a file management system that includes a file indexing framework that allows third parties to contribute index handlers that are responsible for populating index entries for the artifacts they own and/or generate. The framework manages the creation, maintenance, and update of the index, and calls the index handlers at appropriate times so they can parse files that they understand for values that need to be stored in the index. The framework also provides APIs for querying the standardized fields of the index, so applications can search for standard types of data contributed for any of the indexed files. The present invention also provides a mechanism to keep track of symbolic name associations for every file/entity in the system. Specifically, the present invention provides a session-based and transient shadow table of symbolic names previously used by the files (even beyond the lifetime of the files themselves).

File indexing framework and symbolic name maintenance framework

A solution for managing a set of artifacts for a runtime environment is provided, which enables improved tooling that supports runtime extensions to a runtime environment. In one embodiment, an extension handler is obtained for a runtime extension to the runtime environment. The runtime extension comprises a program code that can be included in the runtime environment to extend the default capabilities of a runtime engine/framework. The extension handler provides tooling support for extension artifacts that use/require the runtime extension. When a tooling request for an extension artifact is obtained, the tooling request is processed using the extension handler. In this manner, a tooling solution is shielded from needing to know the specifics of the extension artifact or corresponding runtime extension. Similarly, the developer of the extension handler for the runtime extension is shielded from needing to know any specifics of the tooling environment. As a result, the invention provides a tooling solution that is extensible to support the tooling requirements of an extensible runtime engine.

Growing community of inventors

Stouffville, Canada

Hiroshi Tsuji