Method for automatic generation of schema mapping application code

• US 20080229279A1
• Filed: 05/29/2008
• Published: 09/18/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Richmond, Michael
• Granted Patent: US 8,286,146 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/106
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/00 Arrangements for software engineering testing or debugging G06F11/36; administrative, planning or organisation aspects of software project management G06Q10/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/24 Object-oriented
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44505 Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files

Abstract

A method for automatic generation of schema mapping application code. The method includes loading a code generation tool with source and target schemas. The method further includes defining the mapping specification between the source and the target. The method proceeds by triggering the code generation tool. Afterwards, the method proceeds by compiling the generated code. Furthermore, the method includes executing the generated code to transform input data files.

Claims

1. A method for automatic generation of schema mapping application code, including:

loading a code generation tool with source and target schemas;

defining the mapping specification between the source and the target;

triggering the code generation tool;

compiling the generated code; and

executing the generated code to transform input data files.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the code generation tool is triggered by selecting a code generation menu item.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein when the code generation menu item is selected a code generation options dialog is displayed for allowing the user to control aspects of the code generation process.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the user is allowed to specify the file system directory where generated files will be saved.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the user is allowed to turn off generation of particular application implementation files.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the user is allowed to customize the generated application by at least one of, (a) hand, and by (b) incorporating the generated code into the existing application of the user.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the code generation tool is configured to generate at least one of, (i) a stand-alone application, (ii) a web service implementation, and (iii) a software component, for performing the specified map transformation from input data documents to produce the output data documents.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the application includes a plurality of static library classes and a plurality of dynamic classes, the implementation of the static library classes being fixed and not dependent upon either schema nor map specification for any particular generated application, the implementation and quantity of the dynamic classes being dependent upon the schemas and the particular map specification that the code generation tool will generate at least one of, (i) a custom application to implement, (ii) a web service implementation, and (iii) a software component.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the dynamic classes are separated into two groups, (a) the first group termed the singleton dynamic classes, the first group being dynamic classes for which the code generation tool is invoked once to produce a single version of these classes and, (b) the second group termed the map-specific dynamic classes, the second group being the dynamic classes for which the code generation tool is invoked multiple times to produce various versions of these classes.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the code generation tool is configured to read in the source and target schemas along with the mapping specification and construct data structures in memory to represent the schemas and the mapping specification.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the code generation process is coordinated by a generation coordinator object (GCO), the GCO handles the generation of the application code in two phases, (i) extraction of data to produce generation arguments, and (ii) invocation of individual code generators.