Method, system and apparatus for a transformation engine for use in the processing of structured documents

• US 20090106775A1
• Filed: 04/27/2006
• Published: 04/23/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/27/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Kalekin, Udi, Matheson, Jack K., Tong, Ying Fai, Cahoon, Brendon D., Cermak, Daniel M., Trujillo, Richard, Derrick, John E., Dobbs, Bryan, Tsoi, Howard P.
• Granted Patent: US 8,065,685 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/318
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/154 Tree transformation for tree-structured or markup documents, e.g. XSLT, XSL-FO or stylesheets
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/221 Parsing markup language streams streaming G06F40/149

Abstract

Systems, methods and apparatuses for embodiments of a transformation engine for structured documents are disclosed. More specifically, instruction code may be generated by a compiler from transformation instructions for a structured document. Embodiments of the transformation engine may comprise hardware circuitry operable to execute the instruction code to process a structured document according to the transformation instructions such that output for an output document is generated.

Claims

1. An apparatus, comprising

a hardware circuit operable to execute a set of instructions to transform a structured document, wherein the set of instructions was created by compiling a set of transformation instructions for a structured documents and the hardware circuit comprises a set of application engine circuits operable to execute the set of instructions.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising an event classifier circuit operable to:

retrieve an instruction from the set of instructions,

generate a first event from the instruction, where the first event comprises the instruction and a runtime context for processing the instruction, and

place the first event in a queue to be dispatched to one of the set of application engines or a set of hardware accelerators.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the instruction comprises an opcode.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the instruction comprises a first reference to a set of nodes, a first reference to a data structure or a first reference to an instruction table.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, further comprising an event generator circuit operable to generate a second event from the first event, where the second event comprises the opcode of the instruction.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the second event comprises a second reference to one or more of the set of nodes, a second reference to the data structure or a second reference to the instruction table.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein:

the event generator circuit is operable to reference a set of data structures corresponding to the structured document to generate the second event, and

each application engine is operable to;

generate a first request for the creation of an output data structure based on the execution of the event,

generate a second request for the creation of an output data structure based on the execution of the event, and

access a set of microcode instruction associated with the opcode of the event, each application engine comprising a processor core operable to execute the set of microcode instructions.

8. A system, comprising:

a compiler operable to generate a set of instructions from a set of transformation instructions corresponding to a structured document;

a parser circuit operable to generate a first set of data structures corresponding to the structured document;

a pattern expression processor circuit operable to generate a second set of data structures corresponding to the structured document; and

a transformation engine circuit operable to access the first set of data structures and the second set of data structures to execute the set of instructions to transform the structured document according to the transformation instructions.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the transformation engine comprises an event classifier circuit operable to:

retrieve an instruction from the set of instructions,

generate a first event from the instruction, where the first event comprises the instruction and a runtime context for processing the instruction, and

place the first event in a queue to be dispatched to one of a set of application engines or a set of hardware accelerators.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the instruction comprises an opcode.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the instruction comprises a first reference to a set of nodes, a first reference to the first set of data structures or the second set of data structures, or a first reference to an instruction table.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising an event generator circuit operable to generate a second event from the first event, wherein the second event comprises the opcode of the instruction.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the second event comprises a second reference to the set of nodes, a second reference to the first set of data structures or the second set of data structures or a second reference to the instruction table.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the event generator circuit is operable to reference the first set of data structures or the second set of data structures corresponding to the structured document to generate the second event.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein each application engine is operable to access a set of microcode instruction associated with the opcode of the first event and each application engine comprises a processor core operable to execute the set of microcode instructions

16. The system of claim 15, further comprising an output generator circuit operable to generate an output document from a set of output data structures, wherein the transformation engine circuit is operable to send a first request for the creation of an output data structure of the set of output data structures to the output generator circuit and send a second request to the output generator circuit, where the request is executable to place a result of the execution of the event in the first output data structure.

17. A method for applying transformation instructions to a document, comprising

accessing a set of instructions, wherein the set of instructions was created by compiling a set of transformation instructions and the set of instructions is executable on a hardware circuit operable to transform a structured document according to the transformation instructions;

and

executing, on the hardware circuit, the set of instructions to transform the structured document according to the set of transformation instructions.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising generating a first event from an instruction where the event comprises the first instruction.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the instruction comprises an opcode.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the instruction comprises a first reference to a set of nodes, a first reference to a data structure or a first reference to an instruction table.

21. The method of claim 19, further comprising

generating a second event from the first event, where the second event comprises the opcode;

and

executing the second event substantially in parallel with one or more other events on the hardware circuit.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the second event comprises a second reference to one or more of the set of nodes, a second reference to the data structure or a second reference to the instruction table.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein generating the second event comprises accessing a set of data structures corresponding to the structured document.

24. The method of claim 23, further comprising:

producing a set of output data structures corresponding to an output document associated with the structured document, where the output data structures are the result of the execution of the instruction code;

requesting that one of the set of output data structures be created; and

requesting that a result from the execution of the event be associated with one of the output data structures.