EXTENSIBILITY APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACE AND FRAMEWORK FOR META-MODEL OBJECTS

• US 20080163160A1
• Filed: 11/05/2007
• Published: 07/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/18/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Bloesch, Anthony, Rajagopal, Ramesh
• Granted Patent: US 7,979,842 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4488 Object-oriented

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system and methodology providing an Application Programming Interface (API) and framework that supports a meta-object model for application design and operating system interactions. The API includes an input component that receives data and/or instructions. The input component processes a meta-data model that interrelates data via a class hierarchy, wherein the class hierarchy includes relationship descriptions between class objects, attributes, rules, and/or behavioral descriptions. Another aspect includes a data management system that includes a component to receive an item having meta-data annotations. An analysis component determines at runtime a structure for the item via deployment of the meta-data annotations. The system can also include a framework component that defines meta-data class derivations, meta-data classes, meta-data integrity rules, and/or meta-data class behavior.

Claims

1. An application programming interface, comprising:

an input component that receives data and/or instructions; and

a meta-model object that is processed by the input component, the meta-data model interrelates data via a class hierarchy.

2. The application programming interface of claim 1, the meta-model includes relationship descriptions between class objects.

3. The application programming interface of claim 2, the class objects are associated with a meta-class.

4. The application programming interface of claim 1, the input component is associated with services that operate in conjunction with an operating system framework.

5. The application programming interface of claim 4, further comprising an extension to the framework to interact with at least one of software modeling tools, editor tools, design tools, graphics tools, and word processors.

6. The application programming interface of claim 4, further comprising one or more assemblies that contain annotated classes that derive from classes defined by the framework.

7. The application programming interface of claim 4, the framework reads meta-data from one or more component assemblies to determine at runtime a structure of an item.

8. The application programming interface of claim 7, the item is a document.

9. The application programming interface of claim 1, the meta-object model includes at least one of a meta-class, a meta-attribute, a meta-relationship, an integrity rule, and a behavior description.

10. The application programming interface of claim 9, the meta-class inherits from one or more other meta-classes and/or from base functionality provided by an operating system framework.

11. The application programming interface of claim 9, the meta-class is associated with a relational database.

12. The application programming interface of claim 9, the meta-class is identified via a globally unique identifier.

13. The application programming interface of claim 9, the meta-class is identified via at least one of a name and a caption to facilitate application development.

14. The application programming interface of claim 1, the meta-model object is associated with at least one of a meta-meta-model and a data model.

15. The application programming interface of claim 9, the meta-class is a class encapsulating data employed to represent another class.

16. The application programming interface of claim 9, the meta-relationship include relationships between model classes.

17. The application programming interface of claim 9, the meta-relation-ship is optionally captured in a database via a join operation that allows cardinality combinations to be modeled uniformly.

18. The application programming interface of claim 9, the meta-relationship optionally includes at least one meta-role.

19. The application programming interface of claim 1, further comprising a component to manage at least one of a system state, an event, a transaction, a rollback, and a schema.

20. The application programming interface of claim 19, the transaction is a nested transaction.