System and method for providing namespace related information

• US 20040002937A1
• Filed: 06/27/2002
• Published: 01/01/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Reynar, Jeffrey C., Sawicki, Marcin, Jones, Brian Michael, Broman, Paul Alexander, Little, Robert Andrew
• Granted Patent: US 7,392,479 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/986 Document structures and storage, e.g. HTML extensions

Abstract

A system and method for providing namespace related information. A namespace library operating in a computer provides a central source of namespace related information for handling XML documents. The namespace related information may be used by other computer application programs operating in the computer. The namespace related information provided by the namespace library is indexed by namespace. Many types of namespace related information may be associated with each namespace. The computer application programs may obtain namespace related information by querying the namespace library using a particular namespace.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium encoded with computer-executable components, comprising:

a namespace library configured to provide namespace related information to the computer-executable components on a computer, the namespace information being indexed by a plurality of namespaces; and

a plurality of application programs configured to open XML documents, each of the XML documents referring to at least one of the namespaces, the application programs being further configured to query the namespace library to identify namespace related information associated with the namespace.

2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the namespace related information includes information that describes how the XML document should be handled.

3. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the namespace related information includes at least one location identifier for a primary XML schema associated with the namespace.

4. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the namespace related information includes at least one location identifier for a solution associated with the namespace and one of the application programs.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 4, wherein the location identifier indicates a location on a local storage unit where the solution is stored.

6. The computer-readable medium of claim 4, wherein the solution is contained in a repository on another computer, and wherein the location of the solution in the repository is indicated by the location identifier.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 6, wherein the application program associated with the solution is configured to interact with the repository in the other computer through a network, and wherein the application program retrieves the solution from the repository using the location identifier.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 4, wherein the solution includes an XML schema.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 4, wherein the namespace related information further includes at least one property associated with the solution.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the namespace related information associated with the namespace further includes a location identifier for at least one solution manifest associated with the namespace and one of the application programs.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the namespace related information associated with the namespace further includes at least one property associated with the solution manifest.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the namespace related information associated with the namespace further includes a location identifier of at least one default solution associated with the namespace and one of the application programs.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the namespace related information further includes a list of elements associated with the namespace.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the namespace related information further includes at least one feature associated with one of the listed elements.

15. A computer-readable medium encoded with a data structure, comprising:

a first indexing data field including a plurality of namespaces; and

a second data field including namespace related information indexed to the first indexing data field, the namespace related information comprising resources associated with at least one of the namespaces in the first indexing data field.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the namespace related information further comprises at least one solution indexed to one of the namespaces in the first indexing data field.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the namespace related information further comprises resources for the solution.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the resources for the solution comprises a solution alias.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the resources for the solution comprises a location identifier for the solution.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the namespace related information further comprises resources for at least one solution manifest indexed to one of the namespaces in the first indexing data field.

21. The computer-readable medium of claim 20, wherein the resources for the solution manifest comprises a solution alias.

22. The computer-readable medium of claim 20, wherein the resources for the solution manifest comprises a location identifier for the solution manifest.

23. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the namespace related information further comprises resources for at least one default solution indexed to one of the namespaces in the first indexing data field.

24. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the resources associated with the namespace comprise a location identifier for an XML schema.

25. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the resources comprise at least one alias associated with one of the namespaces.

26. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the resources comprise features of a plurality of elements associated with the namespace.

27. The computer-readable medium of claim 25, wherein the features of at least one of the elements include an element alias.

28. The computer-readable medium of claim 25, wherein features of at least one of the elements include element likeness instructions.

29. The computer-readable medium of claim 25, wherein features of at least one of the elements include information on element behavior.

30. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, further comprising:

a third indexing data field including a plurality of namespaces that are different from the namespaces included in the first indexing data field; and

a fourth data field including schema manifest information indexed to the third indexing data field, the schema manifest information comprising at least one location identifier for a manifest associated with one of the namespaces in the third indexing data field.

36. The method of claim 29, further comprising if the namespace library does not contain an entry for the namespace, and if an entry does not exist in a manifest collection, opening the XML document without a solution.

31. A method for obtaining information to handle an XML document containing a namespace, comprising:

querying a namespace library using the namespace; and

if the namespace library contains an entry for the namespace,

retrieving namespace related information associated with the namespace; and

using the namespace information to handle the XML document.

32. The method of claim 31, further comprising if the namespace library contains a location identifier for a solution associated with the namespace, retrieving the solution using the location identifier and applying the solution to open the XML document.

33. The method of claim 31, further comprising if the namespace library contains at least two location identifiers associated with two solutions associated with the namespace, prompting a user to select one of the solutions, retrieving the solution using the location identifier, and applying the selected solution to open the XML document.

34. The method of claim 31, further comprising if the namespace library does not contain at least one location identifier for a solution associated with the namespace, applying a universal solution associated with an application program to open the XML document.

35. The method of claim 31, further comprising if the namespace library does not contain an entry for the namespace, and if an entry exists in a manifest collection, installing the manifest and using the information in the manifest to handle the XML document.