Using permanent identifiers in documents for change management

• US 20060085402A1
• Filed: 10/20/2004
• Published: 04/20/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 10/20/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Brown, David C., Yang, Zhanjia
• Granted Patent: US 7,392,243 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/194 Calculation of difference between files
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/197 Version control for software G06F8/71
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

Described is a system and method by which a unique and permanent identifier is added to tags in hierarchically-arranged data (e.g., an XML or XAML file) by a first tool. The data with the unique and permanent identifiers is processed by a second tool into a flat file of key-value pairs, with the key being constructed from the identifier and attribute names, and the value comprising the corresponding value for that attribute. When the flat file from the new data file is compared to a flat file from an earlier version of the file, a standard merge program is able to better detect the differences, including differences caused by complex edits. The comparison is more granular than it would be if simply comparing the hierarchically-arranged file versions, thereby providing significant benefits in localization and other version tracking scenarios.

Claims

1. In a computing environment, a method comprising:

associating unique identifiers with tags of a hierarchically-arranged file; and

processing the unique identifiers into at least part of a key used in a key-value arrangement of data to facilitate comparison with another key-value arrangement built from another file.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein associating the unique identifiers with tags of a hierarchically-arranged file comprises, determining whether each tag that is to have an associated unique identifier already has a unique identifier, and if not, associating an identifier with the tag that has an value that is not associated with another tag in the file.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein associating the unique identifiers with tags of a hierarchically-arranged file comprises, determining whether each tag corresponds to data that needs to be uniquely identified, and if so, ensuring that a unique identifier is associated with that tag.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein processing the unique identifiers into at least part of the key used in a key-value arrangement of data comprises building a file of key-value pairs, each key-value pair including a key based on a tag'"'"'s associated unique identifier and a value that corresponds to data of the tag associated with that unique identifier.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein at least one value that corresponds to the data of the tag contains a plurality of entities.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein processing the unique identifiers into at least part of the key used in a key-value arrangement of data comprises constructing the key from the unique identifier and an attribute name corresponding to the tag.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising, constructing the value based on textual content associated with the tag.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising detecting differences between the key-value arrangement of data and another key-value arrangement of data.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein detecting differences comprises applying the key-value arrangements of data to a standard merge tool that outputs records for each change that may be flagged with deleted, new or changed content flags.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein detecting differences comprises evaluating the key-value arrangements of data corresponding to a current version of the hierarchically-arranged file against the key-value arrangements of data corresponding to an earlier version of the hierarchically-arranged file.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the hierarchically-arranged file comprises an extensible markup language (XML) file.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the hierarchically-arranged file comprises an extensible application markup language (XAML) file.

13. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions which when executed perform the method of claim 1.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein detecting the differences comprises applying the first and second key-value arrangements of data to a standard merge tool that outputs records for each change that may be flagged with deleted, new or changed content flags.

14. At least one computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions, which when executed perform steps, comprising:

associating unique identifiers with tags of a first hierarchically-arranged file;

processing the unique identifiers into at least part of a key used in a first key-value arrangement of data;

associating unique identifiers with tags of a second hierarchically-arranged file that is based on the first hierarchically-arranged file, in which the unique identifiers are associated with tags that do not already have a unique identifier;

processing the unique identifiers into at least part of a key used in a second key-value arrangement of data; and

detecting differences between the first key-value arrangement of data and the second key-value arrangement of data.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 14 wherein associating the unique identifiers with tags of the first hierarchically-arranged file comprises, determining whether each tag corresponds to data that needs to be uniquely identified, and if so, ensuring that a unique identifier is associated with that tag.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 14 wherein processing the unique identifiers into at least part of the key used in a first key-value arrangement of data comprises building a first file of key-value pairs, each key-value pair including a key based on a tag'"'"'s associated unique identifier and a value that corresponds to data of the tag associated with that unique identifier.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 14 wherein processing the unique identifiers into at least part of the key used in a first key-value arrangement of data comprises constructing the key from the unique identifier and an attribute name corresponding to the tag.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 17 further comprising, constructing the value based on textual content associated with the tag.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 14 wherein the second hierarchically-arranged file is a later version of the first hierarchically-arranged file.

21. The computer-readable medium of claim 14 wherein the hierarchically-arranged file comprises an extensible markup language (XML) file.

22. The computer-readable medium of claim 14 wherein the second hierarchically-arranged file comprises an extensible application markup language (XAML) file.

23. In a computing environment, a system comprising:

an insertion tool that associates unique identifiers with tags of a hierarchically-arranged file; and

a flattening tool that builds a file of key-value pairs, each key-value pair including a key based on a tag'"'"'s associated unique identifier and a value that corresponds to data of the tag associated with that unique identifier.

24. The system of claim 23 further comprising a comparison tool that compares the file of key-value pairs against another file of key-value pairs.

25. The system of claim 24 wherein the file of key-value pairs corresponds to another hierarchically-arranged file that is a later version of the hierarchically-arranged file.

26. The system of claim 24 wherein the comparison tool comprises a merge tool that outputs flagged records.

27. The system of claim 23 wherein the insertion tool associates unique identifiers with tags of a hierarchically-arranged file by determining whether a tag already has a unique identifier associated therewith, and if not, by inserting a unique identifier into the tag.

28. The system of claim 23 wherein the unique identifier includes a text string that describes the tag and a number that is unique for that text string.

29. The system of claim 23 wherein at least one value that corresponds to the data of the tag associated with a unique identifier comprises data corresponding to a string of text.

30. The system of claim 23 wherein at least one value that corresponds to the data of the tag associated with a unique identifier comprises data describing a button.

31. The system of claim 23 wherein at least one value that corresponds to the data of the tag associated with a unique identifier comprises data describing a plurality of buttons.

32. The system of claim 23 wherein the hierarchically-arranged file comprises an extensible markup language (XML) file.

33. The system of claim 23 wherein the hierarchically-arranged file comprises an extensible application markup language (XAML) file.