Processing of compact functional diferences

• US 20080040401A1
• Filed: 05/09/2007
• Published: 02/14/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/20/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Original Assignee: InnoPath Software, Inc. (Qualcomm, Inc.)
• Inventors: Reinsch, Matthias
• Granted Patent: US 7,676,506 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/658 Incremental updates; Differential updates

Abstract

Embodiments include systems and methods for pre-processing and post-processing original and new versions of files as part of difference file generation between the original and new file versions. The systems and methods of an embodiment include a set of algorithms that reduce the difference file size by preprocessing a variety of regions in software images for embedded computing devices, an example of which is the compressed read-only memory (ROM) file system (CRAMFS) image. The algorithms treat a variety of types of data regions that are created by the compiler. Embodiments operate on the server side and the client side. On the server side, the preprocessing generates Compact Functional Differences (CFD) hint data directly from a pair of CRAMFS images, without the use of symbol files or log files generated by compiler/linker utilities.

Claims

1. A method for performing file differencing, comprising:

identifying a plurality of regions in an original version of software image and in a new version of a software image, wherein the plurality of regions comprise compact functional differences (CFD) preprocessing regions; and

preprocessing the plurality of regions, comprising,

examining in the original version and the new version;

identifying matching paths new version and the old version using approximate matching techniques;

analyzing differences between corresponding regions in the new version and the old version; and

describing the differences using a transformation that depends on values of groups of N bytes in the corresponding regions.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the original version and the new version comprise execute-in-place (XIP) files.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the CFD preprocessing regions comprise at least one table of pointers.