Oracle International Corporation

John Weisz

Subramanian Muralidhar

Anil Nori

Vikas Arora

A pickler apparatus and a process for pickling and unpickling data objects are disclosed. Data objects are described in metadata that store attributes of a source data object organized according to an abstract data type, and a data format of the computer system that is hosting the pickler. Using the metadata, the data object is transformed into a linear representation or image. The format, layout, alignment, and inheritance representation of the host system are applied to the image during transformation. The image has a length value, a prefix segment, and a string of bytes copied from the data object. The prefix segment may be the metadata, so that the metadata is transported with the image whereby a receiving process can reconstruct the data object from the image based upon the metadata. The image is canonical and is easily and rapidly transported across a network. When a pointer is encountered in the data object, it is transformed in the string of bytes into a value of the offset in bytes indicated by the pointer, a length of the data that is referenced by the pointer, and a segment of bytes copied from the data that is referenced by the pointer. Nested tables, arrays, and complex collections referenced in the object are efficiently linearized.

Apparatus and method for pickling data

An apparatus and process for storing representations of information objects having null values in a database are disclosed. A null object is established in memory associated with an information-bearing object. The null object has an attribute null value corresponding to each data-bearing attribute of the information-bearing object. Each attribute null value is set to a value indicating whether the corresponding attribute of the information-bearing object is null, not null, or not capable of having a null value. The null object also has an atomic null value that indicates whether the entire information-bearing object is null. When the information-bearing object is to be accessed, the null object is first accessed to determine whether the entire information-bearing object or any attributes thereof are null. Accordingly, unnecessary retrieval and manipulation of the information-bearing object is avoided.

Apparatus and method for null representation in database object storage

An apparatus and process for storing information objects in a database are disclosed. An information object, instantiated according to an abstract data type having a plurality of attributes, is pickled into an image that contains all values stored in the object in a linearized representation. In one embodiment, the entire image is stored in a single column of a table of the database. In another embodiment, each portion of the image associated with one of the attributes is stored in a separate column of the database table.

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Belmont, CA, United States of America

John Weisz