ATOMIC TRANSACTION FILE MANAGER

• US 20080005111A1
• Filed: 05/08/2006
• Published: 01/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/08/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Savage, Kevin
• Application Number:
  US11/382,248
• Publication Number:
  US 20080005111A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/8
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1474 in transactions G06F16/20 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1865 Transactional file systems

Abstract

Embodiments provide developers with easy to use file atomicity mechanisms and undo/redo functionality that are not tied to any particular document format by using modern file systems. More specifically, a transaction file manager is configured to automatically utilize a directory name change operation to ensure the atomicity of file modifications (i.e., a change to one file is either consistently applied across all files within the directory, or not at all) without regard to any particular file format. Further, to support versioning of changes to multiple files, embodiments also keep the order of sets of changes by using a sortable directory naming mechanism within the transaction file manager. Most modern file system will allow for these two things, thus providing a system that atomically applies changes across arbitrary sets of files using any file format, while also providing multilevel undo/redo functionality.

Claims

1. In a computing system configured to modify files, a method of ensuring atomicity for multiple writes across one or more documents without regard to any particular document format type and without creating complex code for syncing document fields, the method comprising:

receiving a file transaction initialization for making multiple writes to one or more files located within a first directory of a file system;

identifying the file transaction as requiring atomic consistency across the multiple writes to the one or more files such that the multiple writes either succeed or fail as a whole even with a hardware failure, software failure, or both; and

based on the required atomic consistency, automatically creating a temporary directory folder different from the first directory, the temporary directory created for saving in-memory data for the one or more files in order to make the multiple writes thereto.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the multiple writes are made to the one or more files within the temporary directory, the method further comprising:

receiving a commit notification that converts the temporary directory to permanent storage by renaming the temporary directory such that it will persist upon the occurrence of the hardware failure, software failure, or both.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the renaming further identifies the committed directory as a version generated after the first directory in order to allow a user to undo changes made by the multiple writes and rollback to the one or more files to the first directory version.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the renaming is based on the naming of the first directory.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein data of the one or more files within the committed directory is modified in memory and used in one or more subsequent file transactions.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein a path to one or more of the first directory, temporary directory, or committed directory are specified by a developer that created the file transaction system.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein a path to temporary directory, committed directory, or both, is automatically determined based on a path specified for the first directory.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein only a portion of the multiple writes are made to the one or more files within the temporary directory before the occurrence of a hardware failure, software failure, or both, the method further comprising:

receiving a second file transaction initialization for making second multiple writes to the one or more files;

determining that the file transaction abnormally terminated; and

deleting the temporary directory to remove inconsistent files and preserve atomicity thereof.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein based on the second file transaction initialization, the method further comprises:

automatically creating a second temporary directory folder different from the first directory, the second temporary directory created for saving in-memory data for the one or more files in order to make the second multiple writes thereto.

10. In a computing system configured to modify files, a method of providing for multiple levels of undo/redo functionality for changes to the one or more documents without regard to any particular document format type by using a sortable directory mechanism, the method comprising:

receiving user input requesting an undo/redo change to a set of files, wherein the set of files are atomically maintained such that a change to one file must either be consistently applied to each file within the set, or not at all;

accessing a set of directories related to the set of files, wherein each of the set of directories includes an atomic set of the files that were committed to permanent storage such that each directory within the set represents a version of writes that were atomically maintained across the set of files; and

based on the user input, selecting a chosen directory from the set of directories for accessing a particular version of the set of files in order to apply multiple-levels of the undo/redo changes as desired.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the selection of the chosen directory is based on a first time period assigned to the chosen directory for when its version of writes for the set of files were committed thereto.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the user input identifies a second time period, and wherein the second time period is a closest approximation to the first time period associated with the set of directories.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the selection of the chosen directory is based on a naming convention for the set of directories, which represents an easily identifiable sorted order of the particular version of the set of files that were committed to each of the set of directories.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the naming convention includes at least numerical numbers for easily identifying the sorted order.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the chosen directory is renamed or otherwise marked to easily identify it as the chosen directory in subsequent transaction requests for the set of files.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein a single root path is used for the set of directories.

17. In a computing system configured to modify files, a method of ensuring atomicity across multiple writes to a set of documents in order to protect against hardware or software failures by rolling back to a previous version of the set of documents based on a transaction that only partially completed, without creating complex code for syncing document fields, the method comprising:

receiving an initialization of a file transaction for a set of files, which are atomically maintained such that a change to one file must either be consistently applied to each file within the set, or not at all;

based on the initialization, accessing a storage that includes a temporary directory and a first directory for different versions of the set of files, wherein the temporary directory was automatically created from a previous file transaction initialization that made at least one change to at least one file from the set of files, and wherein the first directory includes a copy of the set of files without the at least one change to any file within the set;

identifying that the file transaction abnormally terminated, which indicates that at least one of the files from the set of files within the temporary directory does not include the at least one change such that the at least one change has not been consistently applied to each of the files within the set; and

using the first directory for the file transaction such that the set of files rolls-back to the version without the at least one change to any file within the set.

18. The method of claim 17, the method further comprising:

deleting the temporary directory such in order to ensure that the temporary directory is not considered in subsequent file transactions and to ensure that inconsistent temporary files created during the file transaction that abnormally terminated are removed.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the at least one change is the creation of an additional file to the set of files.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein a single root path is used for both the first directory and the temporary directory for easily relating the two.