Multiple version interface

• US 20060195851A1
• Filed: 02/25/2005
• Published: 08/31/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 02/25/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Curtis, Pavel, Leung, Yiu-Ming
• Granted Patent: US 7,506,334 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/328
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/541 via adapters, e.g. between incompatible applications
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/547 Remote procedure calls [RPC]; Web services
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/548 Object oriented; Remote method invocation [RMI] non-remote method invocation G06F9/449

Abstract

A modified proxy object implements one or a multiple versions of an interface, and provides a common, multi-version interface. The common, multi-version interface is comprised of a union of all the methods of all versions of the interface that are supported by the modified proxy object. Since the common, multi-version interface allows an object to access the functionalities supported by the multiple versions of the interface, a subsystem programmed to create and use the modified proxy object(s) only needs to use the common, multi-version interface provided by the modified proxy object(s) to communicate with multiple, different versions of remote subsystems.

Claims

1. One or more computer memories collectively containing a proxy object implementing multiple versions of an interface and providing a multi-version interface, the multi-version interface being a single interface that includes all the functionalities supported by the multiple versions of the interface that are supported by the proxy object, such that the multi-version interface allows an object to access the functionalities supported by the multiple versions of the interface to communicate with multiple version of a target object.

2. The computer memories of claim 1, wherein the multi-version interface comprises a union of all the methods of the multiple versions of the interface that are supported by the proxy object.

3. The computer memories of claim 1, wherein the object is a distributed object.

4. The computer memories of claim 1, wherein the multi-version interface exposes an additional method for obtaining a version of the target object that the proxy object is presently connected to.

5. The computer memories of claim 1, wherein the proxy object is operable to perform error checking to ensure that only one of the multiple versions of the interface is used during a single instance of the proxy object.

6. The computer memories of claim 5, wherein the one of the multiple versions of the interface that is being used during the single instance of the proxy object matches a version of the target object.

7. The computer memories of claim 1, wherein the proxy object maintains an indication of a version of the interface that has been negotiated between the object and the target object.

8. A computer-implemented method for allowing a subsystem to communicate with multiple different versions of a target subsystem, the method comprising:

establishing a connection with a target subsystem;

negotiating a version of an interface to use in communicating between the subsystem and the target subsystem;

creating an object and an instance of a proxy object in the subsystem, the proxy object implementing a plurality of versions of the interface and providing a common, multi-version interface that exposes the superset of methods belonging to the plurality of versions of the interface implemented by the proxy object;

providing the instance of the proxy object an indication of the negotiated version of the interface; and

establishing a logical channel between the instance of the proxy object and a counterpart proxy object in the target subsystem, wherein the counterpart proxy object is a remote source proxy that models the negotiated version of the object in the source subsystem,

such that the instance of the proxy object and the counterpart proxy object communicate with each other using the negotiated version of the interface.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the object in the subsystem exposes a superset of methods from the plurality of versions, and wherein the instance of the proxy object only calls the methods belonging to the negotiated version.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the instance of the proxy object only accepts methods belonging to the negotiated version of the interface over the communication channel from the counterpart proxy object.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the instance of the proxy object exposes an additional method for obtaining the negotiated version of the interface.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the instance of the proxy object performs error checking to ensure that the object only calls methods belonging to the negotiated version.

13. A subsystem that is capable of communicating with multiple different versions of a target subsystem, the subsystem comprising:

an object comprising an implementation of a superset of methods belonging to one or a plurality of versions of a subsystem, the object having an object interface that exposes the superset of methods; and

a modified proxy object comprising an implementation of a superset of the methods belonging to a plurality of versions of a target subsystem, the modified proxy object having a common, multi-version interface that exposes the superset of methods,

such that the object and an instance of the modified proxy object communicate with each other through the object interface and the common, multi-version interface by only calling the methods belonging to a negotiated version of the subsystem and the instance of the modified proxy object.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the common, multi-version interface exposes an additional method for obtaining an indication of the negotiated version.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the instance of the proxy object is operable to perform error checking to ensure that only the methods belonging to the negotiated version are called by the object.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the instance of the proxy object is operable to perform error checking to ensure that only the methods belonging to the negotiated version are accepted from a counterpart proxy object.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the object is a distributed object.

18. The system of claim 13, wherein the object comprises an implementation of a superset of methods belonging to a plurality of versions of the subsystem.