Calculating and Storing Data Structures

• US 20090182710A1
• Filed: 10/26/2007
• Published: 07/16/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/26/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Cole, Daniel J., Chauhan, Sumit, Brotherton, Michael Allen, Selca, Vitore, Short, Abigail Elisabeth, Pohle, Matthew
• Granted Patent: US 7,836,100 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2291 User-Defined Types; Storage management thereof

Abstract

Embodiments are provided to calculate and provide information based in part on a defined expression. In an embodiment, a database system can be configured to include a number of calculated columns as part of a database table structure. The database system can be configured to present a calculated result based in part on a determined result type. In one embodiment, a database system can be configured to enable calculated columns to be defined on a table of a database, wherein a component can be used to evaluate an expression associated with a column calculation to determine a proper result type. The proper result type can be stored and used when presenting a result of the calculation. Other embodiments are available.

Claims

1. A system to manage data, the system comprising:

a database system configured to manage operations associated with the data and other information, the database system including a number of operational layers to operate and use an expression associated with a data structure which is included as part of a database table;

an expression service component configured to evaluate the expression and provide a result and other information associated with the result and expression; and

,

a storage to store the calculated result and information associated with the calculated result.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the expression comprises a formula including one or more dependencies associated with one or more table columns and the expression service component can evaluate the formula to provide a calculated result for each row associated with the database table.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the data structure comprises a column of a table in a database.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the database system can cause the recalculation of a calculated column if a dependency associated with the calculated column changes, including providing a default result type associated with the calculated column.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the database system is further configured to use a serialized format to write the result and information associated with the result to the storage.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the database system is further configured to provide the result to a user application after translating the result from a serialized format, the provided result optionally resulting from a conversion of a calculated result to a user-specified result type.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the database system is further configured to write the result and a temporal indicator to indicate when the result was calculated to the storage.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein the database system is further configured to write the result and an error associated with a formula evaluation to the storage.

9. The system of claim 5, wherein the database system is further configured to write the result to the storage as a table property.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the expression service component is further configured to evaluate a formula associated with a calculated column, wherein the evaluation includes determining a presentation type to present the result in a user interface.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the expression service component is further configured to validate the expression by parsing the expression to ensure that the expression returns a valid and correct result.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the expression service component is further configured to validate the expression by checking for proper syntax.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the database system is further configured to validate the expression by checking for properly referenced dependencies.

14. A computer-readable storage medium including executable instructions which, when executed, manage data by:

defining a calculated column based on an expression;

creating the calculated column by including the calculated column as a column of a table and the formula as a member of a column data structure;

calculating a result of the expression associated with the calculated column;

persisting the result using a serialized storage format, wherein the serialized storage format can include a calculated value and information associated with the calculated value; and

,

fetching the result when referencing an associated object without having to recalculate the result associated with the calculated column.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, further comprising validating a formula by parsing the formula to ensure that the formula returns a proper result.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, further comprising determining whether a dependency associated with the calculated column creates a circular reference.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, further comprising using a web service call to communicate a value of the calculated column as a parameter when evaluating the expression.

18. A method of managing data comprising:

receiving a formula associated with a calculated column of a database, wherein the calculated column comprises a column of a table of the database;

evaluating the formula including any dependencies associated with the formula;

storing a result of the evaluation to a storage medium using a serialized storage format, wherein a time can be included as part of the serialized storage format to identify when the result was evaluated.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising including the formula in the table as a column property.

20. The method of claim 18, further comprising including the result type in the table as a column property or as part of other table metadata.