Automatic identification of form contents

• US 20040205525A1
• Filed: 04/30/2001
• Published: 10/14/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2001
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: General Electric Capital Corporation (General Electric Company)
• Original Assignee: General Electric Capital Corporation (General Electric Company)
• Inventors: Murren, Brian T., Dixon, Walter V. III
• Application Number:
  US09/847,038
• Publication Number:
  US 20040205525A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/505
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging

Abstract

Form contents are automatically identified and can be included in a form definition. The form contents can include one or more fields to be included on the form and/or one or more restrictions on inputs to a field on the form.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving an indication of a desired form to be used for data input; and

automatically identifying one or more data input fields to be included on the form.

2. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising automatically identifying, for each of the one or more data input fields, one or more restrictions to be imposed on the data subsequently input via the data field.

4. A method as recited in claim 2, wherein automatically identifying the one or more restrictions comprises:

identifying one or more interactions associated with a business logic, wherein the business logic processes requests subsequently submitted via the form, and wherein each interaction is associated with a request and includes one or more command definitions to process the request; and

identifying, in the one or more interactions, one or more attributes that are not obtained by the one or more interactions elsewhere.

5. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein automatically identifying the one or more data input fields comprises requesting, from a business logic, an identification of the one or more data input fields, wherein the business logic processes requests subsequently submitted via the form.

6. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein automatically identifying the one or more data input fields comprises:

identifying one or more interactions associated with a business logic, wherein the business logic processes requests subsequently submitted via the form, and wherein each interaction is associated with a request and includes one or more command definitions to process the request; and

identifying, in the one or more interactions, one or more attributes that are not obtained by the one or more interactions elsewhere.

7. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein each of the one or more data input fields comprises a user input field.

8. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the automatically identifying comprises communicating with a business logic to identify the one or more data input fields.

9. A method as recited in claim 8, wherein the business logic comprises a plurality of interactions to process requests, and wherein the indication comprises an identification of one of the plurality of interactions.

10. A method comprising:

automatically identifying one or more restrictions associated with a data input field; and

using the one or more restrictions and the field to generate a text markup language form.

11. A method as recited in claim 10, wherein the automatically identifying comprises communicating with a business logic to identify the one or more restrictions, wherein the business logic processes requests subsequently submitted via the form.

12. A method as recited in claim 11, wherein the communicating comprises requesting, from the business logic, an identification of the one or more restrictions and receiving, from the business logic, the identification of the one or more restrictions.

13. A method as recited in claim 11, wherein the communicating comprises:

identifying one or more interactions associated with the business logic, wherein each interaction is associated with a request and includes one or more command definitions to process the request; and

identifying, in the one or more interactions, one or more attributes that are not obtained by the one or more interactions elsewhere.

14. A method as recited in claim 10, further comprising:

automatically identifying the data input field to be included in the text markup language form.

15. A method as recited in claim 14, wherein automatically identifying the data input field comprises requesting, from a business logic, an identification of the data input field, wherein the business logic processes requests subsequently submitted via the form.

16. A method as recited in claim 14, wherein automatically identifying the data input field comprises:

identifying one or more interactions associated with the business logic, wherein each interaction is associated with a request and includes one or more command definitions to process the request; and

identifying, in the one or more interactions, one or more attributes that are not obtained by the one or more interactions elsewhere.

17. A method as recited in claim 14, wherein automatically identifying the one or more restrictions comprises automatically identifying that a data input to the automatically identified data input field is required when submitting the form.

18. A method as recited in claim 10, wherein the data input field is for user input of data.

19. A method as recited in claim 10, wherein the data input field comprises one of the following fields:

a text input field, a password input field, a checkbox field, a button field, a radio button field, a drop down field, and one or more values of a selection field.

20. One or more computer-readable media comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed, direct a processor to perform acts comprising:

determining one or more attributes that are used by a business logic but not obtained by the business logic elsewhere;

using each of the one or more attributes to define a field on a form, the field being used to obtain data input; and

including validation code associated with the defined one or more fields, wherein the validation code, when executed, verifies that data is input to the defined field.

3. A method as recited in claim 21, wherein automatically identifying the one or more restrictions comprises requesting, from a business logic, an identification of the one or more restrictions and receiving, from the business logic, the identification of the one or more restrictions, and wherein the business logic processes requests subsequently submitted via the form.

21. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 20, wherein the data input comprises data input by a user.

22. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 20, wherein the computer-executable instructions further direct the processor to perform acts including:

identifying additional restrictions to be imposed on data input via the field; and

including additional validation code corresponding to the additional restrictions and associated with the defined one or more fields, wherein the additional validation code, when executed by another processor, causes the other processor to verify that the additional restrictions are satisfied.

23. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 22, wherein identifying additional restrictions comprises requesting, from the business logic, an identification of the additional restrictions and receiving, from the business logic, the identification of the additional restrictions.

24. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 20, wherein the computer-executable instructions further direct the processor to perform acts including:

identifying restrictions to be imposed on data input via one or more additional fields on the form; and

including additional validation code corresponding to the additional restrictions and associated with the one or more additional fields, wherein the additional validation code, when executed by another processor, causes the other processor to verify that the additional restrictions are satisfied.

25. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 20, wherein the computer-executable instructions further direct the processor to perform acts including:

identifying additional restrictions to be imposed on data input via the field; and

including additional validation code corresponding to the additional restrictions and associated with the defined one or more fields, wherein the additional validation code, when executed by the processor, causes the processor to verify that the additional restrictions are satisfied.

26. A system comprising:

a tag library to store validation code that, when included in a form definition and executed from the form definition, verifies that an input to an associated data input field of the form defined by the form definition satisfies one or more restrictions; and

a form processor configured to automatically identify one or more restrictions to be associated with a data input field of the form, and further configured to include, in the form definition, validation code from the tag library to verify that a subsequent input to the data field satisfies the one or more automatically identified restrictions.

27. A system as recited in claim 26, wherein the form processor includes an attribute restriction identification module configured to automatically identify the one or more restrictions, and a tag replacement module to automatically include, in the form definition, the validation code to verify that the subsequent input to the data field satisfies the one or more automatically identified restrictions.

28. A system as recited in claim 26, wherein the form processor is further configured to automatically identify the one or more restrictions by:

identifying one or more interactions associated with a business logic, wherein the business logic processes requests subsequently submitted via the form; and

identifying, in the one or more interactions, one or more attributes that are not obtained by the one or more interactions elsewhere.

29. A system as recited in claim 26, wherein the form processor is further configured to:

identify one or more interactions associated with a business logic, wherein the business logic processes requests subsequently submitted via the form;

identify, in the one or more interactions, one or more attributes that are not obtained by the one or more interactions elsewhere; and

identify one or more additional data input fields to be included in the form based at least in part on the identification of the one or more attributes not obtained by one or more interactions elsewhere.

30. A system as recited in claim 26, wherein the input is a user input.

31. One or more computer-readable media comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed, direct a processor to generate a form definition to be used to present a form to a user for data input by performing the following acts:

identifying one or more data fields to be included in the form;

automatically identifying, for each of the one or more data fields, one or more restrictions on data that can be input via the data field; and

generating a form definition that includes the one or more data fields and that also includes code to verify that, for each of the one or more data fields, a subsequent input to the data field satisfies the one or more restrictions.

32. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 31, wherein the one or more data fields include one or more of the following fields:

a text input field, a password input field, a checkbox field, a button field, a radio button field, a drop down field, and one or more values of a selection field.

33. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 31, wherein identifying the one or more data fields to be included in the form comprises automatically identifying the one or more data fields to be included in the form.

34. An architecture comprising:

a business logic layer to process requests received from a client; and

an execution environment layer via which a form processing module can communicate with the business logic layer, wherein the form processing module obtains, from the business logic layer, an indication of one or more restrictions on data input to a form for a request to be subsequently processed by the business logic layer.

35. An architecture as recited in claim 34, wherein the data input field is for user input of data.

36. A method comprising:

accessing a business logic to identify one or more interactions associated with the business logic, wherein each interaction is associated with a request and includes one or more command definitions to process the request;

identifying, in the one or more interactions, one or more attributes that are not obtained by the one or more interactions elsewhere; and

indicating that the one or more identified attributes are to be obtained via a data input field on a form, and further indicating that an input for the data input field is needed when submitting the form.

37. A method as recited in claim 36, wherein the input comprises a user input.