International Business Machines Corporation

Siegfried Wiesenhofer

James E Carey

Curtis Howard Brobst

Bradley William Fawcett

Verena Kranzl

Stephen Porter

An extensible Object-Oriented (OO) framework in an object-oriented programming system defines objects and classes used to correspond to and track a collection document. The collection document can be an accounts receivable (the debt is to be received) or an accounts payable (the debt is to be paid) collection document. A collection document is an unconditional order in writing in which a debtor promises to pay a debt to a bearer in exchange for at least one benefit that has been or will be received by the debtor. The OO framework defines a collection document object that corresponds to and tracks a collection document through its many states until the collection document finally ends in an ending state. Even then, the collection document object may be retained (e.g., in a persistent or frozen state) for future reference. Each of the states of the collection document object corresponds to one of the states of the collection document.

Object-oriented framework for tracking collection documents

In an object oriented computer system, an object oriented mechanism and method defines a common interface to maintain elements on a collection while providing the capability of using virtually any suitable object as a key to the collection. A programmer defines an interface on a collection that includes suitable object methods for adding, removing, and replacing elements of the collection. The constraints that determine whether elements may be added, removed, or replaced is encapsulated in a policy that is defined by the programmer. The programmer identifies one or more keys, which may include any suitable object in the object oriented system. A maintainer class provides a client interface for maintaining elements on the collection according to the defined policy and according to the keys defined by the programmer. The present invention recognizes the common characteristics that exist in maintaining elements on a keyed collection, and provide predetermined classes and class relationships that provide support for maintaining any collection using any key that a programmer may define.

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Vienna, Austria

Siegfried Wiesenhofer