International Business Machines Corporation

Logiclibrary, Inc.

Akana, Inc.

Timothy James Graser

Brent Allen Carlson

James E Carey

Anders Magnus Nilsson

Brent A Carlson

Dave H Gross

Debra L Mariner

John J Palof

Paul W Tamminga

Bradley William Fawcett

Ulf Jesper Thomas Lindblom

Steven Lester Halter

Torbjorn Harald Pernbeck

Tore Magnus Dahl

Jan Olof Engstrom

Barbara Regine Proske

Kathryn Ann Bohrer

John M Vlissides

Vincent Edmund Price

Randy Dee Baxter

Mark Alan Pasch

Dave Henry Gross

Kathy Bohrer

Wilfried Lesnik

Simon Paul Reason

In general, techniques are described that facilitate the reuse of software assets within an enterprise. A software asset, as used herein, refers to a set of one or more related artifacts that have been created or harvested for the purpose of applying that asset repeatedly in subsequent development environments. A system, for example, is described that includes a repository to store artifacts, and an asset source to generate a software asset based on the artifacts. The system further includes an asset management system to receive the software asset from the asset source and store the software asset within an asset library. The system may further include a model having one or more elements, and an asset retrieval module to selectively retrieve a subset of the software assets from the asset library based on input from a user identifying one or more of the elements.

Generating reusable software assets from distributed artifacts

In general, techniques are described that facilitate the reuse of software assets within an enterprise. A system, for example, is described that includes a repository to store artifacts, and an asset source to generate a software asset based on the artifacts. The system further includes an asset management system to receive the software asset from the asset source and store the software asset within an asset library. The system may further include a model having one or more elements, and an asset retrieval module to selectively retrieve a subset of the software assets from the asset library based on input from a user identifying one or more of the elements. The system may also include a subsystem that allows users to customize asset governance processes and tailor system behavior through an event-driven mechanism.

Customizable asset governance for a distributed reusable software library

Managing reusable software assets

In general, techniques are described for dynamically generating schema information for data description languages. The techniques include receiving a schema defining a class of elements that conform to a data description language, and receiving a constraint template that defines requirements for instances of the elements. The techniques further comprise dynamically generating schema information based on the schema and the constraint template, and validating a document in accordance with the schema information.

Dynamic generation of schema information for data description languages

An object oriented mechanism is disclosed that allows class replacement that is based on a specified processing context by replacing existing configuration data with new configuration data within an existing object oriented program. The configuration data is preferably stored in a data structure external to the class definitions to allow modifying the classes without re-compiling the class code. The configuration data includes multiple entries, where each entry is a key-value pair. The key includes information relating to the processing context, and the value includes information relating to the class that corresponds to the key. When an instance of a class needs to be created, the context information is retrieved, a key is generated from a combination of the class information and the context information, and the context-sensitive key is used to retrieve the corresponding class configuration data from the data structure that specifies a particular class. An object that is an instance of the specified class is then created. By generating a key that is context-specific, configuration data for a class can be scoped to a particular processing context, thereby providing context-based class replacement.

Object oriented apparatus and method for providing context-based class replacement in an object oriented system

A conversion path for converting between two different currencies is defined as a series of simple exchange rate objects and is encapsulated within a compound exchange rate object. The intelligence regarding the specific rules for making the conversion are encapsulated in a policy class, which governs how the path of exchange rates contained in the compound exchange rate is built. When a client requests conversion between two currencies, the compound exchange rate is constructed according to the policy to contain a path of exchange rate objects that may be used to make the requested conversion, and the compound exchange rate is then returned to the client. When the client then instructs the compound exchange rate to make a conversion of a known currency value in the source currency, the compound exchange rate object uses the exchange rate object or objects in the exchange rate path to perform the currency conversion. A system in accordance with the invention thus allows the computation of exchange rates in a fully encapsulated manner according to a predefined policy without the client having to know the details of how the conversion is performed.

Apparatus and method for performing conversion between different units of currency using an encapsulated conversion path of exchange rates

In an object-oriented computer system, one or more run-time extensible items may be dynamically reconfigured as required to support different interfaces at run-time via one or more extensions owned by the extensible item. When an invokeMethod( ) method on an extensible item is invoked, specifying the method name, the extensible item cycles through its extensions, from newest to oldest, looking for an extension that supports the named method. Each extension determines whether a method table exists that corresponds to the extension class. If not, a method table corresponding to the extension class is created. When an extension is found that supports the named method, a method node that corresponds to the named method is returned. The method node then invokes the named method on the extension.

Implementation for an object oriented run-time extensible item

An object oriented framework defines a generic order processing interface that creates an order, and that processes the order and generates requests to one or more fulfillment systems to fill the order. The generic order suitably includes one or more line items. One or more extensible interface classes are provided in the framework, which allows a user to define the order entry protocol for the relevant order fulfillment systems. Once properly extended, the framework is used to generate an executable framework application, which allows a client to enter a generic order, and which then generates the appropriate requests to fill the order with the appropriate order fulfillment system or systems. The framework of the preferred embodiments thus allows the specific knowledge of the back-end order fulfillment systems to be isolated to the extended portions of the framework, while the front-end order entry system has no knowledge of the order fulfillment systems that may be called upon to fill an order. The framework of the present invention thus allows adding a new order fulfillment system by simply extending the framework to define the attributes of the new fulfillment system without making changes to the core portion of the framework that governs how generic orders are processed.

Object oriented framework mechanism and method for providing a generic order entry processing interface for one or more order fulfillment systems

In an object oriented computer system, a framework mechanism defines one or more run-time extensible items that may be dynamically reconfigured as required to support different interfaces at run-time. Each extensible item has one or more adapters that correspond to the extensions owned by the extensible item. The extensible item class defines a castTo( ) method. The castTo( ) method is invoked to logically cast an instance of the extensible item class to a desired class so that a selected method on that class can be called. When the castTo( ) method is invoked on an instance of the extensible item class, the extensible item object determines if any of its extensions have an adapter that supports the class specified in the castTo( ) method call. If an adapter does support the specified class, the adapter corresponding is returned, and the selected method is then invoked on the adapter. In this manner, class casting of run-time extensible items is achieved.

Class casting support for run-time extensible items in an object oriented framework

A framework being used for developing software system e.g. for a business application. This framework includes a number of object oriented classes which may be processed by a computer system. The invention provides an interface and a base class which implements this interface that allows specific data to be added to the objects of classes supporting the interface at runtime without the need for subclassing of the original class. Specific data added in this way to an object are referred to as properties of the object, and the interface introduced by this invention is referred to as the property container interface.

Property container type objects

In an object oriented computer system, a framework mechanism defines a mechanism that separates the ability to complete a process from the results of that process. A task is defined in the framework in terms of a sequence of processes. The framework includes a coupling mechanism for flexibly coupling any of these processes together in any suitable order to define the run-time behavior of the framework without changing the core functions of the framework. The coupling mechanism includes the definition of a processable interface and a processing interface. A particular process generally takes detail information as input and produces detail information that is used in a subsequent process. The detail information input into a process is said to be &ldquo;processable&rdquo;, and therefore implements the &ldquo;processable&rdquo; interface. The detail information output from a process is said to be &ldquo;processing&rdquo; detail that is output to the next process, and therefore implements the processing interface. Thus, an object that uses &ldquo;shippable&rdquo; detail information as input through its processable interface generates corresponding &ldquo;shipping&rdquo; detail information for each shippable detail, which is output to one or more subsequent processes via the processing interface. A particular processable can be associated with any processing interface that supports the processable interface. In other words, any process-related class in the framework can be coupled to any other process-related class, provided one class has a processing interface that corresponds to the processable interface of the subsequent class. In this manner, classes in the framework mechanism can be flexibly coupled together in any suitable order or fashion to accommodate a great variety of different configurations. The framework mechanism therefore provides a high degree of implementation while maintaining the ability to achieve a high degree of customization.

Mechanism and method for flexible coupling of processes in an object oriented framework

In an object oriented computer system, one or more run-time extensible items are defined that may be dynamically reconfigured as required to support different interfaces at run-time. The behavior associated with these interfaces is supported by one or more extensions owned by the extensible item. Each extension class has a corresponding method table that is shared among instances of the extension class and that correlates the methods defined on the extension class to method node objects that carry out the method. A method repository is a static object that is created at run-time to correlate extensions to their corresponding method tables. When a client invokes an invokeMethod( ) method on an extensible item, specifying the name of the method to be invoked, the extensible item cycles through its extensions, from newest to oldest, looking for an extension that supports the named method. Each extension examines the method repository to see if the method repository contains a method table corresponding to the extension class. If not, a method table corresponding to the extension class is created and placed in the method repository. When an extension is found that supports the named method, a method node that corresponds to the named method is returned. The method node then invokes the named method on the extension.

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.

Growing community of inventors

Rochester, MN, United States of America

Timothy James Graser