Peer-to-peer grouping interfaces and methods

Abstract

Application programming interfaces and methods that provide group management in a peer-to-peer (P2P) network are provided. More specifically, new and improved P2P application programming interfaces (APIs) and methods for the creation and access of groups, the retrieval of member and group information, the addition, modification, deletion and management of records (data), the importation and exportation of group data, the direct communication between members, the addition of a security provider to a group, the setting and retrieval of presence information, the registering for event notifications, and other utility and support functions are presented. Each of these interfaces utilize various parameters that are passed in from an application program that uses these interfaces to manage and utilize groups. The interfaces return a value that indicates the success or failure of the function. For failures, the interfaces provide an indication as to the problem resulting in the failure.