Rapid prototyping database

• US 20060218163A1
• Filed: 03/28/2005
• Published: 09/28/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/28/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Turski, Andrzej, Marcjan, Cezary, Kott, Ryszard K.
• Granted Patent: US 7,693,918 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/213 with details for schema evolution support
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/289 Object oriented databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/00 Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific functions information retrieval, database structures or file system structures therefor G06F16/00

Abstract

A system and method for generating a schema for a database is provided. The schema is based, at least in part, upon three main tables: object types, objects, and, associations. Through these three base tables, the system facilitates rapid prototyping of schema associated with database(s). The schema is extensible since associations between objects, objects and object types are not hard-coded and can be dynamically updated by modifying the appropriate entry(ies) in one or more of these three base tables. Thus, through these three tables, an extensible, flexible framework for generating and/or dynamically modifying the schema is provided. The system includes an input component that receives information associated with a requested database prototype. The system further includes a schema generation component that generates a schema based, at least in part, upon the information received by the input component.

Claims

1. A schema generation system comprising:

an input component that receives information associated with a requested schema for a database; and

,

a schema generation component that generates a schema based, at least in part, upon information received by the input component, the schema further being based, at least in part, upon an associations table, an objects table and an object types table.

2. The system of claim 1, the generated schema facilitating identification of objects associated with a particular object.

3. The system of claim 1, an entry of the associations table stores association information that links a first object with a second object.

4. The system of claim 3, information associated with the first object and the second object stored in the objects table.

5. The system of claim 3, each entry in the associations table uniquely identifying an association between objects.

6. The system of claim 3, the association information comprising an association object.

7. The system of claim 6, information associated with the association object stored in the objects table.

8. The system of claim of claim 1, an entry of the objects table including an object identifier and a type identifier.

9. The system of claim 8, the type identifier refers to an entry in the objects type table.

10. The system of claim 1, an entry of the objects table uniquely identifies an object.

11. The system of claim 1, an entry of the object types table stores information associated with an object type.

12. The system of claim 1, an entry of the object types tables comprising a type identifier, a name arid a description.

13. The system of claim 12, the type identifier associated with at least one of an association, a person, a file, an email, an application, a web page, a folder, an event, a raw event, a group type, a group and an email server.

14. The system of claim 12, the entry further comprising information associated with a table associated with the type.

15. The system of claim 14, the information associated with a table associated with the type comprising at least one of a raw event table, an event table and an object table.

16. The system of claim 1, the generated schema associated with a file system database.

17. The system of claim 1, the generated schema modified by the schema generation component based upon user interaction during prototyping.

18. A method of generating a schema for a database comprising:

populating an object types table with types of objects;

populating an objects table with instances of the types of objects; and

,

populating an associations table with information linking types of objects.

19. A computer readable medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions for carrying out the method of claim 18.

20. A schema generation system comprising:

means for receiving information associated with a requested schema for a database; and

,

means for generating the requested schema, the schema based, at least in part, upon the received and upon an associations table, an objects table and an object types table.