METHOD FOR DECOUPLING COMPONENTS OF A SOFTWARE SYSTEM AT COMPILE TIME AND LOAD TIME

• US 20090070791A1
• Filed: 09/06/2007
• Published: 03/12/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/06/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Atlantic City Coin & Slot Service Company Incorporated (Atlantic City Coin & Slot Service), International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Rathnam, Sai G., GISSEL, THOMAS R., Haberkorn, Marc E.
• Granted Patent: US 8,869,177 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/330
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/20 Software design

Abstract

A method, system and computer program product for decoupling components of a software system at load/compile time to accelerate application startup times. In particular, a software components partitioning (SCP) utility pre-defines a number of (implementation) classes to initiate and facilitate the decoupling process. The SCP utility allows the method names and argument lists to be recorded from a remote interface into a local interface which emulates the remote interface. The local interface is augmented with an annotation to define the remote interface. Additionally, a pre-defined keyword is appended to the name of the local interface to enable the creation of a (pre-defined) classname. Furthermore, when the classname is loaded, an implementation (via a Java implementation class, for example) for the remote class is loaded, and the implementation is associated with a dynamic proxy that implements both the local and remote interfaces, on demand.

Claims

1. In a data processing system with a Java platform, a method comprising:

pre-defining a number of implementation classes required to facilitate a decoupling of software components at a load/compile time to accelerate application startup;

recording one or more method names and one or more argument lists from a required remote interface into a local interface;

augmenting the local interface with an annotation that defines the remote interface in order to alert a runtime process that the local interface emulates the remote interface;

initiating the creation of a dynamic proxy;

appending a predefined keyword to the name of the local interface to enable the generation of a new classname;

detecting when the new classname is loaded; and

when the new classname is loaded;

loading an implementation for the remote class; and

associating the implementation with the dynamic proxy, which subsequently implements the interfaces when required by one of a specific user action and a system action.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said defining further comprises:

creating one or more classes that enable a remote interface to be defined by an annotation; and

applying the annotation as an augmentation to the local interface in the code development process.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said initiating further comprises:

activating a function that returns a dynamic proxy, given a specified class loader and a specified set of interfaces, which set of interfaces includes the remote interface and the local interface.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said enabling further comprises:

creating one or more classes and keywords that enable the generation of a classname to load an implementation for the remote class and to associate the implementation with the dynamic proxy; and

generating the classname when a predefined keyword is appended to the name of the local interface.

5. A computer program product comprising:

a computer readable medium; and

program source code on said computer readable medium that when executed within a data communication device, said program code provides the functionality of;

pre-defining a number of implementation classes required to facilitate a decoupling of software components at a load/compile time to accelerate application startup;

recording a set of method names and argument lists from a required remote interface into a local interface;

augmenting the local interface with an annotation that defines the remote interface in order to alert the runtime that the local interface emulates the remote interface;

initiating the creation of a dynamic proxy;

appending a predefined keyword to the name of the local interface to enable the generation of a new classname;

detecting when the new classname is loaded; and

when the new classname is loaded;

loading an implementation for the remote class; and

associating the implementation with the dynamic proxy, which subsequently implements the interfaces when required by a specific user action or system action.

6. The computer program product of claim 5, wherein said code for defining further comprises code for:

creating one or more classes that enable a remote interface to be defined by an annotation; and

applying the annotation as an augmentation to the local interface in the code development process.

7. The computer program product of claim 5, wherein said code for initiating further comprises code for:

employing a (method) function which returns a dynamic proxy given a specified class loader and a specified set of interfaces which set comprises the remote interface and the local interface.

8. The computer program product of claim 5, wherein said code for enabling further comprises code for:

creating one or more classes (keywords) that enable the generation of a classname to load an implementation for the remote class and to associate the implementation with the dynamic proxy; and

generating the classname when a predefined keyword is appended to the name of the local interface.

9. A data processing system comprising:

a processor which executes a Java Platform software;

a memory system which stores the Java Platform;

a utility executing on the processor which provides the functions of;

pre-defining a number of (implementation) classes required to facilitate a decoupling of software components at a load/compile time to accelerate application startup;

recording a set of method names and argument lists from a required remote interface into a local interface;

augmenting the local interface with an annotation that defines the remote interface in order to alert the runtime that the local interface emulates the remote interface;

initiating the creation of a dynamic proxy;

appending a predefined keyword to the name of the local interface to enable the generation of a new classname;

detecting when the new classname is loaded; and

when the new classname is loaded;

loading an implementation for the remote class; and

associating the implementation with the dynamic proxy which subsequently implements the interfaces when required by a specific user action or system action.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein said functions for defining further comprises functions for:

creating one or more classes that enable a remote interface to be defined by an annotation; and

applying the annotation as an augmentation to the local interface in the code development process.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein said functions for initiating further comprises functions for:

employing a (method) function which returns a dynamic proxy given a specified class loader and a specified set of interfaces which set comprises the remote interface and the local interface.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein said functions for enabling further comprises functions for:

creating one or more classes (keywords) that enable the generation of a classname to load an implementation for the remote class and to associate the implementation with the dynamic proxy; and

generating the classname when a predefined keyword is appended to the name of the local interface.