International Business Machines Corporation

Paul Brian Monday

Bradley Scott Rubin

Steven Lester Halter

Curtis Howard Brobst

Galina Gavrilo

Nikolajs Krasnikovs

Zahara Sulkins

Maurice Allan Zipse

A preferred embodiment of the present invention provides an improved system and method for object persistence. The preferred embodiment facilitates the creation of persistent objects in a way that is orthogonal to class and does not require the use of persistent mixin classes. The preferred embodiment uses reference objects, which to the view of the system act as the object itself, and storage objects which persistently store the data for the persistent objets. The reference objects include pointers to the storage object, and provide address translation and indirection when accesses are to be made to the persistent object data stored in the storage object.

Method and apparatus for object persistence

A method and apparatus for changing a component's mode based on its environmental context is disclosed. A component role fulfillment mechanism, as part of a component, changes the mode of a component based on its environmental context. The environmental context is defined by connections made by an assembler between components. Each component can support a variety of modes, but the component role fulfillment mechanism chooses one mode based on the environment and configures the component to fulfill only one mode.

Apparatus and method for component role fulfillment based on environment context

An apparatus and method defines a markup language for accessing data in a database. The markup language is preferably defined in extensible markup language (XML) by creating suitable document type definitions (DTDs), which define the grammar for accessing data in the database using the markup language. A bridge interprets the data request from the client in markup language format, a suitable database query for the database is formulated, and the data is then placed within a document for delivery in markup language format to the user. As new data types are added to the database, corresponding document type definitions (DTDs) may be dynamically generated, allowing a user to access new kinds of data in a database with a software tool that has a user-friendly graphical user interface without having to manually update the software tool for each new data type that is added to the database.

Tagged markup language interface with document type definition to access data in object oriented database

A method and apparatus for connecting two components is disclosed. A visual construction simplification mechanism, as part of the apparatus, is designed with intelligence that allows it to correctly configure and interconnect the two components. The invention reduces the real and visual complexity of a program by requiring only a single bootstrap connection to be established between the components. Once the initial connection is made, the visual construction simplification mechanism can make additional connections that allow the two objects two function and interoperate. Introspection is a process used to find a component's interface and identity. The visuals construction simplification mechanism looks at the interface of one component and figures out what the identity of the component is using the process of introspection. Introspection is a generic term for the ability of any component to look at the details of another component. Using the information gained through introspection, the visual construction simplification mechanism connects the correct methods and events to properly interconnect the two components.

Apparatus and method for visual construction simplification

A method and computer program product for managing distributed applications on a local computer system, and a distributed application manager are provided. The distributed Application manager running at a local computer system keeps a list of available distributed applications as well as a list of servers from which these distributed applications can be downloaded. The distributed application manager presents a selection screen to the user, containing a list of available distributed applications; and based on a user selection from the list, the distributed application manager searches for the distributed application on a path of servers and a path of directories in each server. When the distributed application manager finds the selected application, it downloads the application from the server, installs the selected application at the local computer system and invokes the application for the user.

Method for managing distributed applications and distributed application manager

An apparatus and method for formatting a specified group of related web pages into a single web page allows a user to define a number of selected pages and associated relation criteria for each selected page. A formatting mechanism collects the URLs for the selected pages and those related pages based on the relation criteria and stores the URLs in a URL container. The formatting mechanism further invokes each web page associated to the URLs contained in the URL container and generates a conglomerate page. The conglomerate web page may include data insert into or referenced in one or more of the selected pages. The conglomerate web page may then be printed using a standard browser print function.

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Rochester, MN, United States of America

Paul Brian Monday