HIERARCHICAL INHERITED XML DOM

• US 20080243910A1
• Filed: 06/13/2008
• Published: 10/02/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/15/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Chad L. Meadows
• Original Assignee: Chad L. Meadows
• Inventors: Meadows, Chad L.
• Granted Patent: US 7,882,155 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/102
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]

Abstract

A computer system including a processor and a memory unit containing instructions that when executed by the processor implement a method for providing processed data definition documents (DDDs) or processed document object models (DOMs) for object oriented programming. The use of these processed data definitions simplifies the data structures and streamlines programming to access the data. A standard DDD/DOM has a hierarchical branched structure having a number of levels each with elements/nodes and attributes. The DDD is written in a platform independent markup language. An element/node is selected and its attributes are identified. All ‘children’ of the selected element/node are identified. The attributes of the selected element/node (parent) are then copied to each child for all children in the DDD/DOM. This is repeated for all elements/nodes in the DDD/DOM, resulting in a processed DDD/processed DOM which is structured to allow program access to data in a more direct manner.

Claims

1. A computer system comprising a processor and a computer readable memory unit coupled to the processor, said memory unit containing instructions that when executed by the processor implement a method for providing a processed data definition document (DDD) having a hierarchical structure intended to be accessed by an application, said method comprising:

a) providing a standard DDD having elements and attributes;

b) selecting an element in the DDD that has not yet been selected;

c) identifying the attributes of the selected element in the DDD;

d) identifying children of the selected element;

e) copying the attributes of the selected element to a child of the children;

f) repeating step e) for at least one child of the identified children of the selected element;

g) determining raw data and data schema of an electronic document that is not a DDD;

h) converting the raw data and data schema into a standard DDD;

i) processing the standard DDD to generate a first processed DDD and storing the first processed DDD in a memory of a computer system, wherein said processing the standard DDD comprises identifying at least one parent element of the standard DDD and for each parent element;

identifying at least one attribute and at least one child element of said each parent element and copying the at least one attribute to each child element of said each parent element;

j) converting, by a first system comprising a first application, the first processed DDD to generate a first document object model (DOM);

k) modifying, by the first application, the first DOM to generate a modified first DOM; and

l) serializing, by the first system, the modified first DOM, to generate a second processed. DDD and storing the second processed DDD in the memory of the computer system.

2. The computer system of claim 1, said method further comprising

converting, by a second system comprising a second application, the second processed DDD to generate a second document object model (DOM);

modifying, by the second application, the second DOM to generate a modified second DOM; and

serializing, by the second system, the modified second DOM, to generate a third processed DDD and storing the third processed DDD in the memory of the computer system.

3. The computer system of claim 2, said method further comprising

converting, by the first system, the third processed DDD to generate a third document object model (DOM);

modifying, by the first application, the third DOM to generate a modified third DOM; and

serializing, by the first system, the modified third DOM, to generate a fourth processed DDD and storing the fourth processed DDD in the memory of the computer system.

4. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the electronic document is a web page.

5. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the electronic document is a word processing file.

6. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the standard DDD is written in a markup language.

7. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the standard DDD is written in eXtensible Markup Language (XML).

8. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the standard DDD is written in HyperText Markup Language (HTML).

9. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the standard DDD is written in eXtensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML).