Systems and methods for off-line modeling a business application

• US 20060242170A1
• Filed: 08/15/2005
• Published: 10/26/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/22/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Stulski, Vitaliy, Tsyganskiy, Igor, Satsuta, Eugene, Scheinkman, Luiz, Liakh, Dmitri
• Granted Patent: US 7,702,638 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/72 Code refactoring

Abstract

Systems and methods consistent with the invention may analyze a business application'"'"'s data, operations, and relationships and create a corresponding object oriented programming (OOP) model corresponding to the business application entities. In one embodiment the OOP model may be realized in the Java programming language and may include OOP objects, functions, and operators. Each OOP model accurately represents the data, relationships, and rules associated with the corresponding business entity. Once converted to an OOP model, systems and methods consistent with the invention may use standard OOP tools to understand, manipulate, design, redesign, analyze, and modify the business application. This can be done independently of the native business application system, as the OOP model is separate and independent from the business application entities. Modifications made to the OOP model may then be converted back into business application entities and installed in the native system.

Claims

1. A method of modeling a business application composed in a first programming format, comprising:

receiving logic entities of the business application;

transforming the received logic entities into a first model of the business application;

generating a second model representing the business application in a second programming format;

processing the second model; and

transforming the second model into the first programming format.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the received logic entities represent table-based data structures of the business application.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the table-based data structures include at least one of configuration data or processing rules of the business application.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the second programming format is an object-oriented programming format, and wherein generating the second model further includes:

generating an object-oriented model representing the business application.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein processing the second model further includes:

modifying the generated second model, and

wherein transforming the second model into the first programming format reflects the modifications made to the second model.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the second programming format is an object-oriented programming format, and wherein processing the model further includes:

applying an object-oriented processing tool to the generated model to process program structures in the object-oriented processing programming format.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein transforming the received logic entities into the first model further includes:

transforming the logic entities into an object-oriented programming structure representing the logic entities.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein transforming the received logic entities into the first model further includes:

defining an object-oriented class that represents common attributes of the logic entities.

9. A method of modeling a business application composed in a table-based programming format, comprising:

receiving table-based data structures of the business application;

generating a model representing the business application in an object-oriented programming format;

processing the model using object-oriented programming tools; and

regenerating, based on the processed model, the business application in the table-based programming format.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the received table-based data structures include at least one of configuration data or processing rules of the business application.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein processing the model further includes:

modifying the model representing the business application, and

wherein the regenerated business application reflects modifications made to the model.

12. A system for modeling a business application composed in a first programming format, comprising:

an extract module that retrieves data structures from the business application to form respective models of the retrieved data structures;

a transform module for transforming the models of the retrieved data structures into object-oriented structures.

an object-oriented language tool for processing the object-oriented structures, wherein the object-oriented structures model the business application.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the extract module further includes:

a context directory having information on a context of the retrieved data structures in the business application.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the extract module further includes:

a translation module that translates the data structures of the business application into the models corresponding to a second programming language.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the translation module translates the data structures into an XML language construct.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the transform module transforms the XML language construct for the business application data into an object-oriented structure.

17. The system of claim 12, wherein the transform module further includes:

a conversion mapping component defining rules for transforming the models of the retrieved data structures into object-oriented structures.

18. The system of claim 12, wherein the object-oriented language tool may process the object-oriented structures during a runtime of the business application.

19. The system of claim 12, wherein the object-oriented language tool includes at least one of an integrated development environment tool, a code optimizer, or a configuration management tool.