CUSTOMIZATION SYNTAX FOR MULTI-LAYER XML CUSTOMIZATION

• US 20090204567A1
• Filed: 02/12/2008
• Published: 08/13/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/12/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Barrow, Chris
• Granted Patent: US 8,788,542 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/80 of semi-structured data, e.g. markup language structured data such as SGML, XML or HTML content-based retrieval of web data G06F16/95
• 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

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention provide techniques for customizing aspects of a metadata-driven software application. In particular, embodiments of the present invention provide (1) a self-contained metadata engine for generating customized metadata documents from base metadata documents and customizations; (2) a customization syntax for defining customizations; (3) a customization creation/update component for creating and updating customizations; (4) a customization restriction mechanism for restricting the creation of new customizations by specific users or groups of users; and (5) memory and caching optimizations for optimizing the storage and lookup of customized metadata documents.

Claims

1. A syntax for customizing a metadata document, the metadata document defining one or more characteristics of at least a portion of a software application, the syntax comprising:

at least one element used to define a modification to a source element of the metadata document,

wherein the at least one element includes a required attribute that must be set to a value that uniquely identifies the source element.

2. The syntax of claim 1, wherein the value is a unique identifier associated with the source element.

3. The syntax of claim 1, wherein the value is an XPath expression that selects the source element.

4. The syntax of claim 1, wherein the metadata document is a customized metadata document generated from a base metadata document and one or more customizations.

5. The syntax of claim 1, wherein the at least one element is one of:

a modify element used to modify an attribute of the source element;

a move element used to reorder or reparent the source element;

or

a replace element used to replace or remove the source element.

6. The syntax of claim 1 further comprising a second element used to insert a new element into the metadata document.

7. The syntax of claim 1, wherein the syntax is expressed as an XML schema.

8. The syntax of claim 7, wherein the metadata document is an XML document.

9. The syntax of claim 1, wherein the reference to the metadata document is validated at runtime of the software application.

10. A method for defining a customization for a metadata document, the method comprising:

defining at least one element that corresponds to a modification of a source element in the metadata document,

wherein the at least one element includes an attribute that is set to a value that uniquely identifies the source element.

11. A customization for a metadata document, the customization comprising:

at least one element that corresponds to a modification of a source element of the metadata document,

wherein the at least one element includes an attribute that is set to a value that uniquely identifies the source element.

12. The customization of claim 11, wherein the customization is an XML document.