COMPOSITIONAL APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACE AND LITERAL SYNTAX

• US 20080196005A1
• Filed: 02/09/2007
• Published: 08/14/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/09/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Beckman, Brian C., Meijer, Henricus Johannes Maria, Zabokritski, Evgueni, Velzen, Danny Van
• Granted Patent: US 8,387,004 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/108
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/20 Software design

Abstract

A compositional application programming interface (API) permits non-sequential construct declaration independent of other API calls. A wrapper is applied to an imperative API to provide a compositional interface that enables arbitrary and autonomous construct declaration. Additionally, a literal syntax (e.g., code literals, graphic literals . . . ) affords a convenient declaration mechanism for such constructs.

Claims

1. A system that facilitates computer programming, comprising:

an imperative application programming interface (API); and

a wrapper component that provides a compositional interface to the imperative API to enable elements to be declared in an arbitrary order.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a constructor component that enables context free element instance declaration.

3. The system of claim 2, at least one element is declared in a literal syntax.

4. The system of claim 3, the at least on element is declared as a code literal.

5. The system of claim 4, a portion of the code literal references a value from its programming environment.

6. The system of claim 3, the at least one element is declared as a graphical literal.

7. The system of claim 2, the constructor component captures element declarations as functions that accept context.

8. The system of claim 2, further comprising a context component that links an element to a context as a function of a relation to one or more other elements.

9. The system of claim 1, the imperative API provides functionality for code generation applications.

10. The system of claim 9, the wrapper component separates object declaration from object building.

11. A computer programming method, comprising;

receiving a program specified with aid from a compositionally wrapped imperative API; and

executing the program to generate another program.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising receiving specification of programmatic elements independent of other functionality.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising receiving specification of at least one programmatic element that employs a code literal.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising receiving specification of at least one programmatic element that employs a code literal that includes reference to an environmental value.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising inferring a type associated with the code literal.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising deserializing a code literal from a data store.

17. The method of claim 12, further comprising receiving code that links the independently specified elements together.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising employing functionality provided by the imperative API to build program constructs in accordance with a sequence imposed by the API.

19. A programming system, comprising:

means for providing programmatic support for code generation that separates object declaration from object building; and

means for specifying code to be generated literally.

20. The system of claim 19, further comprising:

means for declaring objects without context; and

means for linking objects to context.