System for exchanging binary data

• US 20040073913A1
• Filed: 02/03/2003
• Published: 04/15/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 02/01/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: John Fairweather
• Original Assignee: John Fairweather
• Inventors: Fairweather, John
• Granted Patent: US 7,158,984 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/328
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/427 Parsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4493 Object persistence
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 13/0825 the ejection arrangement being of the push-push kind
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/913 Multimedia
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/966 Distributed
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation

Abstract

A strongly-typed, distributed, run-time system capable of describing and manipulating arbitrarily complex, non-flat, binary data derived from type descriptions in a standard (or slightly extended) programming language, including handling of type inheritance. The system is comprosed of four primary components. First, a plurality of databases having binary type and field descriptions. Second, a run-time modifiable type compiler that is capable of generating type databases either via explicit API calls or by compilation of unmodified header files or individual type definitions in a standard programming language. Third, a complete API suite for access to type information as well as full support for reading and writing types, type relationships and inheritance, and type fields, given knowledge of the unique numeric type ID and the field name/path. Finally, a hashing process for converting type names to unique type IDs (which may also incorporate a number of logical flags relating to the nature of the type). Further extentions and improvements are also provided as described herein.

Claims

1. ) A system for describing and manipulating arbitrarily complex non-flat binary data derived from type descriptions comprising the following:

a processor;

logically connected to the processor, one or more binary type and field description database(s);

logically connected to the processor, a compiler, wherein such compiler is capable of generating binary type databases;

logically connected to the processor, an API suite, wherein such API suite provides full support for reading and writing information from binary type database(s); and

logically connected to the processor, a hashing process, wherein such hashing process converts type names into unique type IDs

2. ) The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is more than one processor.

3. ) The system of claim 2, wherein more than one processor is distributed across a computer network.

4. ) The system of claim 1, wherein the type databases are represented by the flat data model of the claimed Database.

5. ) The system of claim 1, wherein the compiler is capable of generating type databases using explicit API calls provided by the API suite.

6. ) The system of claim 1, wherein the compiler is capable of generating type databases by compilation of unmodified header files.

7. ) The system of claim 1, wherein the compiler is capable of generating type databases by compilation of individual type definitions.

8. ) The system of claim 1, wherein the compiler is based upon the claimed Parser.

9. ) The system of claim 8, wherein the compiler is based upon the claimed Lexical Analyzer.

10. ) The system of claim 1, wherein the type descriptions stored in the type databases are described using the programming language C.

11. ) The system of claim 1, wherein the types and fields of said type database may have the one or more of the following types of information associated with them:

descriptive text;

field units, named executable scripts;

named annotation records;

custom display, edit, and other handler processes;

type-converter processes;

key words;

coloring and icons;

or data links to external server links and functions.

12. ) The system of claim 1, wherein the hashing process involves computing a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) of the type name.

13. ) The system of claim 1, wherein the API suite includes the ability to allocate, initialize, de-allocate, and cross-reference heap memory model structures of any given type, and access to type relationships and inheritance, and type fields, given knowledge of the unique numeric type ID and the field name/path

14. ) The system of claim 1, wherein the API suite includes the ability to allocate, initialize, de-allocate, and cross-reference flat memory model structures of any given type.

15. ) The system of claim 1, wherein the API suite includes the ability to automatically re-map the byte ordering and field packing of complex binary structures based to that utilized by the underlying processor architecture.

16. ) The system of claim 1, wherein the API suite includes the ability to convert between an arbitrarily complex binary type and a corresponding textual description.

17. ) The system of claim 1, further comprising a system for creating proxy types to a full type, wherein the proxy types created by such system contain a subset of the fields of the full type such that the proxy type is transparently interchangeable with the full type for a given application.

18. ) The system of claim 1 above wherein any given field within a parent type can be assigned a unique field index that can be used interchangeably with the field name/path.

19. ) The system of claim 1, wherein the type IDs created by such hashing process further incorporate a number of logical flags relating to the nature of the type.