Common query runtime system and application programming interface

• US 20040260691A1
• Filed: 06/23/2003
• Published: 12/23/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/23/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Fussell, Mark W., Kimball, Andrew E., Desai, Arpan A., Dubinets, Sergey, Pfleiger, Todd F., Brundage, Michael L.
• Granted Patent: US 7,383,255 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3332 Query translation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/83 Querying
• 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 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A query runtime architecture and an exemplary application programming interface suitable for the architecture are presented. The architecture inputs one or more XML queries and views and enables the queries to be translated wherein the queries and views may be run over multiple data sources of different data models. The architecture incorporates front-end compilers which convert input queries and views into an intermediate language representation which represents the meaning of the respective query or view. The architecture may then allow the back-end compiling of the intermediate language representation to target languages compatible with the data sources desired to be queried. The architecture also allows the execution of those target compilations to extract the data requested of the queries. The invention also discloses an example application programming interface for the query runtime system.

Claims

1. In a system for construction of executable queries, a method of communicating with an application, comprising:

the system receiving from the application, one or more calls to set one or more compile parameters and commands for converting one or more input queries to an XML intermediate language representation; and

the system receiving from the application, one or more calls to convert the XML intermediate language representation to an executable query.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the application receiving from the system one or more of the group consisting of event status, progress status, intermediate results, final results, error messages, warnings and help messages.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more calls to set one or more environment, compile parameters and compile commands comprise one or more of enabling message reception from the system, specifying query permission and execution restrictions, selecting the input query and compiler type, and establishing evaluation contexts.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the compiler type comprises XPath, XSLT and XQuery language compilers.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the XML intermediate language representation is a semantic representation of an input query.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein converting the XML intermediate language to the executable query comprises preparing the XML intermediate language for direct execution in a target query execution engine.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein converting the XML intermediate language to the executable query comprises converting the XML intermediate language into a target representation using a target generator.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the target representation is one or more of the group consisting of an XML language target, a SQL language target and an intermediate language target.

9. A system for the construction of executable queries utilizing the method of claim 1 for communicating with an application.

10. A system for compilation and execution of input queries producing query results, comprising:

an input device for receiving an input query;

one or more intermediate language compilers wherein an XML intermediate language representation is compiled from the input query;

one or more target generators wherein the XML intermediate language representation is transformed into one or more target representations forming a target query;

one or more data sources for querying over; and

an execution engine wherein the target query is executed over the one or more data sources to produce the query results.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the input query comprises a query formed from one or more of XPath, XSLT, and XQuery languages.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the XML intermediate language representation expresses the meaning of the input query.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the one or more target generators comprise one or more of an XML language generator, a SQL language generator and an intermediate language generator.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the one or more data sources comprise one or more of relational data sources and non-relational data sources.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein non-relational data sources comprise spreadsheets and word processing documents.