Grouping and nesting hierarchical namespaces

• US 20040068694A1
• Filed: 10/03/2002
• Published: 04/08/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 10/03/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Kaler, Christopher G., Lucco, Steven E., Atkinson, Robert G., Brown, Allen L.
• Granted Patent: US 6,993,714 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/513
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9027 Trees
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/131 Fragmentation of text files, e.g. creating reusable text-blocks; Linking to fragments, e.g. using XInclude; Namespaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/154 Tree transformation for tree-structured or markup documents, e.g. XSLT, XSL-FO or stylesheets

Abstract

A group identifier represents an association between each of a number of different abbreviated namespace identifiers with a corresponding hierarchical namespace (e.g., an XML namespace). A hierarchically-structured document (e.g., an XML document) is accessed by a computing system that determines that the group identifier is associated with the hierarchically-structured document. Hence, when using the abbreviated namespace identifiers in the hierarchically-structured document, the computing system knows that the corresponding namespace is associated with the designated portions of the hierarchically-structured document. Also, a schema description language document (e.g., an XSD document) may specify multiple target namespaces for a single element. Accordingly, groupings of elements may be included in different namespaces to creating overlapping or even nested namespaces.

Claims

1. In a computing system that has access to a hierarchically-structured document having a plurality of elements that may each be associated with one or more namespaces, a method for establishing a plurality of abbreviated namespace identifiers for a hierarchically-structured document, the method comprising the following:

an act of associating each of a plurality of hierarchical namespaces with an associated abbreviated namespace identifier;

an act of accessing a hierarchically-structured document; and

an act of determining that at least one group identifier is associated with the hierarchically-structured document, the group identifier representing that when any of the abbreviated namespace identifiers are found associated with an element in the hierarchically-structured document, that the associated namespace is also associated with that element.

2. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the act of associating each of a plurality of hierarchical namespaces with an associated abbreviated namespace identifier occurs before the act of accessing a hierarchically-structured document.

3. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the act of associating each of a plurality of hierarchical namespaces with an associated abbreviated namespace identifier occurs after the act of accessing a hierarchically-structured document.

4. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the act of associating each of a plurality of hierarchical namespaces with an associated abbreviated namespace identifier comprises the following:

an act of reading an association of each of the plurality of hierarchical namespaces with the associated abbreviated namespace identifier from the hierarchically-structured document.

5. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the act of determining that at least one group identifier is associated with the hierarchically-structured document comprises the following:

an act of reading a pre-processor directive that indicates that the at least one group identifier is associated with the hierarchically-structured document.

6. A method in accordance with claim 5, wherein the act of accessing a hierarchically-structured document comprises the following:

an act of receiving an electronic message that includes the hierarchically-structured document; and

an act of reading the hierarchically-structured document from the electronic message.

7. A method in accordance with claim 6, wherein the act of reading a pre-processor directive comprises the following:

an act of reading the pre-processor directive from the electronic message.

8. A method in accordance with claim 5, wherein the act of accessing a hierarchically-structured document comprises the following:

an act of reading the hierarchically-structured document from persistent memory.

9. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the act of determining that at least one group identifier is associated with the hierarchically-structured document comprises the following:

an act of reading the at least one group identifier from the hierarchically-structured document.

10. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the act of determining that at least one group identifier is associated with the hierarchically-structured document comprises the following:

an act of determining that there is a default group identifier associated with any of a plurality of hierarchically-structured documents including the hierarchically-structured document.

11. A method in accordance with claim 10, wherein the act of determining that at least one group identifier is associated with the hierarchically-structured document further comprises the following:

an act of determining that the default group identifier is not overwritten.

12. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the act of determining that an at least one group identifier is associated with the hierarchically-structured document comprises the following:

an act of determining that there is a default group identifier associated with at least one element of the hierarchically-structured document.

13. A method in accordance with claim 12, wherein the act of determining that there is a default group identifier associated with any of a plurality of hierarchically-structured documents including the hierarchically-structured document comprises the following:

an act of reading the default group identifier from a schema definition document that defines the structure of the element.

14. A method in accordance with claim 13, wherein the act of reading the default group identifier from the schema definition document that defines the structure of the element comprises the following:

an act of reading the default group identifier from an extensible markup language schema description (XSD) language document.

15. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the act of accessing a hierarchically-structured document comprises the following:

an act of accessing an extensible markup language (XML) document.

16. A computer program product for use in a computing system that has access to a hierarchically-structured document having a plurality of elements that may each be associated with one or more namespaces, the computer program product for implementing a method for establishing a plurality of abbreviated namespace identifiers for a hierarchically-structured document, the computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable media having stored thereon the following:

computer-executable instructions for associating each of a plurality of hierarchical namespaces with an associated abbreviated namespace identifier;

computer-executable instructions for causing a hierarchically-structured document to be accessed; and

computer-executable instructions for determining that an at least one group identifier is associated with the hierarchically-structured document, the group identifier representing that when any of the abbreviated namespace identifiers are found associated with an element in the hierarchically-structured document, that the associated namespace is also associated with that element.

17. A computer program product in accordance with claim 16, wherein the one or more computer-readable media are physical storage media.

18. A computer program product in accordance with claim 16, wherein the computer-executable instructions for associating each of a plurality of hierarchical namespaces with an associated abbreviated namespace identifier comprise the following:

computer-executable instructions for reading an association of each of the plurality of hierarchical namespaces with the associated abbreviated namespace identifier from the hierarchically-structured document.

19. A computer program product in accordance with claim 16, wherein the computer-executable instructions for determining that an at least one group identifier is associated with the hierarchically-structured document comprise the following:

computer-executable instructions for reading a pre-processor directive that indicates that the group identifier is associated with the hierarchically-structured document, wherein the computer-executable instructions for associating each of a plurality of hierarchical namespaces with an associated abbreviated namespace identifier comprise the following;

computer-executable instructions for executing the pre-processor directive.

20. A computer program product in accordance with claim 16, wherein the computer-executable instructions for determining that an at least one group identifier is associated with the hierarchically-structured document comprise the following:

computer-executable instructions for determining that there is a default group identifier associated with at least one element of the hierarchically-structured document.

21. A computer program product in accordance with claim 20, wherein the computer-executable instructions for determining that there is a default group identifier associated with any of a plurality of hierarchically-structured document including the hierarchically-structured document comprise the following:

computer-executable instructions for causing the default group identifier to be read from a schema definition document that defines the structure of the element.

22. One or more computer-readable media having stored thereon a data structure that represents a hierarchically-structured document, the data structure comprising the following:

a first data field that represents a group identifier that represents that a plurality of abbreviated namespace identifiers are each to be associated with a corresponding hierarchical namespace;

a second data field that represents an element of the hierarchically-structured document; and

a third data field that represents that one of the plurality of abbreviated namespace identifiers is associated with the element represented by the second data field.

23. One or more computer-readable media in accordance with claim 22, wherein the one or more computer-readable media are physical storage media.

24. One or more computer-readable media in accordance with claim 22, wherein the data structure further comprises the following:

a fourth data field representing an association between each of at least one of the plurality of abbreviated namespace identifiers and a corresponding hierarchical namespace.

25. One or more computer-readable media in accordance with claim 22, wherein the third data field is contained within the second data field.

26. A method for developing hierarchical namespaces having at least one overlapping element, the method comprising the following:

an act of accessing a schema definition document;

an act of reading a first target hierarchical namespace associated with a first group of one or more elements of the schema definition document;

an act of associating the first group of one or more elements of the schema definition document with the first hierarchical target namespace;

an act of reading a second target hierarchical namespace associated with a second group of one or more elements of the schema definition document; and

an act of associating the second group of one or more elements of the schema definition document with the second target hierarchical namespace, wherein at least one overlapping element is both an element of the first group and of the second group.

27. A method in accordance with claim 26, wherein the second group of one or more elements are all an element of the first group of one or more elements.

28. A method in accordance with claim 26, wherein the first group of one or more elements comprises all of the elements in the schema definition document.

29. A method in accordance with claim 26, wherein the first and second hierarchical namespaces are each XML namespaces, wherein the act of accessing a schema description document comprises the following:

an act of accessing an XSD schema description document.

30. A computer program product for implementing a method for developing hierarchical namespaces having at least one overlapping element, the computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable media having thereon the following:

computer-executable instructions for causing a schema definition document to be accessed;

computer-executable instructions for reading a first target hierarchical namespace associated with a first group of one or more elements of the schema definition document;

computer-executable instructions for associating the first group of one or more elements of the schema definition document with the first hierarchical target namespace;

computer-executable instructions for reading a second target hierarchical namespace associated with a second group of one or more elements of the schema definition document; and

computer-executable instructions for associating the second group of one or more elements of the schema definition document with the second target hierarchical namespace, wherein at least one overlapping element is both an element of the first group and of the second group.

31. One of more computer-readable media in accordance with claim 30, wherein the one or more computer-readable media are physical storage media.

32. One or more computer-readable media having stored thereon a data structure that represents a schema description document, the data structure comprising the following:

a first data field that represents that a first target hierarchical namespace is associated with a first group of one or more elements of the schema description document; and

a second data field that represents that a second target hierarchical namespace is associated with a second group of one or more elements of the schema description document, wherein at least one of the elements of the schema description document is an element of both the first group and the second group.

33. One of more computer-readable media in accordance with claim 32, wherein the one or more computer-readable media are physical storage media.