The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 13, 2012
Filed:
Dec. 30, 2008
Peter Villadsen, Sammamish, WA (US);
Peter Villadsen, Sammamish, WA (US);
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
Architecture allows a programmer to answer questions about the source code the programmer is authoring, questions that cannot be answered by other means. A searching mechanism is provided over a much more structured presentation of the source code. The architecture utilizes components that provide an intimate knowledge about the structure of the text, namely, the source code of some particular programming language. The search mechanism employs an abstract syntax tree representation of the code over which the search is conducted. The program source code (as edited by the programmer) is transformed into the abstract syntax tree to embody the structure of the program. If the syntax tree is provided in XML, for example, an XML search mechanism such as Xpath can be utilized to perform the actual searching. This tree is then queried, allowing richer searching criteria to be expressed (by virtue of the structured format of the tree).