Methods and systems for objects supporting structured language persistent state

• US 20050055679A1
• Filed: 09/27/2004
• Published: 03/10/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 07/14/1997
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Layman, Andrew, Little, Robert A., Mantek, Frank, Francis, James Lee, Apfel, Darren Alexander
• Granted Patent: US 7,543,226 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/139
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/151 Transformation

Abstract

A programming object can comprise an executable method for loading a state of the object and an executable method for saving the object'"'"'s state. The programming object can be an instance of a programmer-defined class. The executable method of the object for loading the state of the object can load the object'"'"'s state as markup language text, and the executable method of the object for saving the object'"'"'s state can save the object'"'"'s state as markup language text.

Claims

1. In one or more computer-readable media, a programming object comprising an executable method for loading a state of the object and an executable method for saving the object'"'"'s state;

wherein the programming object is an instance of a programmer-defined class;

wherein the executable method of the object for loading the state of the object loads the object'"'"'s state as markup language text; and

wherein the executable method of the object for saving the object'"'"'s state saves the object'"'"'s state as markup language text.

2. The programming object of claim 1 wherein the markup language text comprises a form element.

3. The programming object of claim 1 wherein the methods are grouped into a programming interface associated with the programming object.

4. The programming object of claim 1 wherein the markup language text comprises structured language text.

5. The programming object of claim 1 wherein the markup language text comprises hypertext markup language text.

6. The programming object of claim 1 wherein the markup language text consists of structured language text.

7. In one or more computer-readable media, a persistent state of an object having a member function invocable to load one or more properties of the object from markup language text;

wherein the object is an instance of a class exhibiting characteristics of data encapsulation, polymorphism, or inheritance;

wherein the persistent state comprises the markup language text; and

wherein the properties of the object are settable from the markup language text of the persistent state.

8. The persistent state of claim 7 wherein the persistent state comprises a class identifier chosen according to the following method:

selecting a markup language tag component of a markup language element;

finding the markup language tag component in an entry of a data structure having entries associating a markup language element characteristic with a class identifier; and

storing the class identifier of the found entry in the persistent state of an object.

9. The persistent state of claim 7 wherein the markup language text is a stream of markup language text.

10. The persistent state of claim 7 wherein the persistent state comprises an indication of a class identifier indicating a class of the object.

11. The programming object of claim 7 wherein the markup language text comprises structured language text.

12. A method for persisting a programming object comprising a member executable function and a state, wherein the programming object is an instance of a class, and wherein the member executable function is for saving the state of the programming object, the method comprising:

invoking the programming object'"'"'s member executable function for saving the state of the programming object;

responsive to invocation of the member executable function, generating a stream of markup language text representing the state of the programming object, wherein the stream of markup language text is sufficient to restore the programming object to the state.

13. The programming object of claim 12 wherein the markup language text comprises structured language text.

14. In one or more computer-readable media, a programming object comprising:

an interface for loading and saving the object'"'"'s state;

wherein the interface comprises;

an executable member function for generating a markup language text persisted state of the programming object in markup language text; and

an executable member function for restoring the object from the markup language text persisted state;

wherein the programming object is an instance of a class and exposes its functionality to client programs that utilize the object;

wherein the interface for loading and saving the object'"'"'s state is a group of semantically related member functions of the object.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 14 wherein the markup language text comprises structured language.

16. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon a data structure comprising:

a first data field comprising a markup language tag component; and

a second data field comprising a class identifier of an embeddable object associated with the first data field, whereby an object of the class identifier can be rendered to represent a markup language element comprising the markup language tag component of the first data field.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 16 wherein the first data field of the data structure stored thereon comprises a form element name.

18. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon a data structure, comprising:

a first data field comprising a markup language element characteristic; and

a second data field comprising an embeddable object property identifier of an embeddable object, the property identifier chosen with reference to the first data field.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 18 wherein the first data field of the data structure stored thereon comprises an attribute keyword.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 19 wherein the second data field of the data structure stored thereon comprises a dispatch identifier.