IMPLICIT COMPOSITION OF COMPONENT BINDINGS

• US 20090204941A1
• Filed: 02/07/2008
• Published: 08/13/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/07/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Box, Donald F., Moore, Anthony J., Szyperski, Clemens A., Kimmerly, Randy S., Lovering, Bradford H., Anderson, Christopher L.
• Granted Patent: US 8,307,329 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/107
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4488 Object-oriented

Abstract

Component domains used to define a binding between various components associated with the component domain. The component domain tracks the various services to be imported by each component, and tracks the various services exported by each component. At runtime, rather than at compile time, the various interrelations between the components are bound using the service import and export data. Accordingly, depending on the components available and their characteristics, the bindings may differ. This permits applications to be much more flexible.

Claims

1. A computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable media having thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing system, cause the computing system to perform a method for composing a plurality of components of a program, the method comprising:

an act of creating a component domain;

an act of instantiating the plurality of components;

an act of associating at least some of the plurality of components with the component domain;

an act of formulating service export data, the service export data identifying, for each of at least one service including a particular service, at least one of the components of the components associated with the component domain that exports the service;

an act of formulating service import data, the service export data identifying, for each of at least one service including the particular service, at least one of the components of the components associated with the component domain that imports the service;

an act of comparing the service export data with the service import data; and

an act of matching a component that exports the particular service, and a component that the imports the particular service based on the act of comparing.

2. A computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein the act of matching is performed using matching rules.

3. A computer program product in accordance with claim 2, wherein the matching rules indicate that a match is found using at least a criteria of whether a service name specified in import metadata of the component that imports the service matches a service name specified in export metadata of the component that exports the service.

4. A computer program product in accordance with claim 1, the method further comprising:

an act of determining that one of the plurality of instantiated component contains a nested component; and

an act of expanding the nested component such that the nested component is included as one of the components associated with the component domain, and such that the formulated service import data includes at an identification of at least one service imported by the nested component.

5. A computer program product in accordance with claim 1, the method further comprising:

an act of determining that one of the plurality of instantiated component contains a nested component; and

an act of expanding the nested component such that the nested component is included as one of the components associated with the component domain, and such that the formulated service export data includes at an identification of at least one service exported by the nested component.

6. The computer program product in accordance with claim 1, the method further comprising:

an act of binding the matched components such that the particular service is made available by the component that exports the particular service to the component that imports the particular service.

7. The computer program product in accordance with claim 6, wherein the act of binding comprises:

an act of acquiring an object from the component that exports the particular service; and

an act of providing the object to the component that imports the particular service.

8. The computer program product in accordance with claim 6, wherein the act of binding comprises:

an act of acquiring metadata from the component that exports the particular service, the metadata identifying the particular service exported by the component;

an act of providing to the component that imports the particular service an ability to cause the component that exports the particular service to be instantiated.

9. A computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

an act of formulating a catalog that includes a plurality of class definitions as well as an inventory of services exported by the cataloged components.

10. A computer program product in accordance with claim 9, wherein the act of matching comprises an act of matching component within the component domain with a catalogued component.

11. A computer program product in accordance with claim 10, further comprising:

an act of binding the component within the component domain with the cataloged component.

12. A computer program product in accordance with claim 10, further comprising:

an act of binding the component to an abstraction of the cataloged component.

13. A computer program product in accordance with claim 10, wherein the cataloged component is a component from another component domain.

14. A computer program product in accordance with claim 10, wherein the cataloged component is a component from persistent storage.

15. A computer program product in accordance with claim 10, wherein the cataloged component is a component available over a network by the computing system.

16. A computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein the one or more computer-readable media are physical memory or storage media.

17. A computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable media having thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing system, cause the computing system to instantiate in memory the following:

a component domain;

an association module capable of associating instantiated components with the component domain;

a service indexing mechanism configured to index services exported and imported by the components associated with the component domain; and

a matching mechanism configured to match components associated with the component domains using the index service such that components that import a particular service are matched against a component that exports the particular service.

18. A computer program product in accordance with claim 17, wherein the one or more computer-readable media are physical storage media.

19. A computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable media having thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing system, cause the computing system to perform a method for composing a plurality of components of a program, the method comprising:

an act of creating a component domain in a memory;

an act of associating a plurality of instantiated components with the component domain;

an act of inventorying services exported and imported by the components on an individual component basis, the inventory obtained, directly or indirectly, from class definitions for the components;

an act of formulating a plurality of component matchings, each matching including the matching of a service exported by a component with a service imported by another component; and

an act of binding the plurality of component matchings.

20. A computer program product in accordance with claim 19, wherein the one or more computer-readable media are physical storage media.