SOFTWARE FRAMEWORK FOR EVOLVING SPECIFICATIONS IN PROCESS CONTROL SYSTEM
First Claim
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1. A method of implementing an application in a process control system, said method comprising:
- providing a plurality of version objects, wherein each of said plurality of version objects respectively corresponds to a corresponding one of a plurality of versions and is designed to be instantiated by a corresponding one of a plurality of class factories, wherein each of said plurality of version objects is designed to process changes in a corresponding version compared to a prior version;
forming a factory information representing the specific one of class factories which can be used to instantiate the corresponding version object;
receiving a version identifier and an input data that is to be processed;
examining said factory information to select a first class factory designed to instantiate a first version object which in turn is designed to process said input data;
instantiating a version instance of said first version object; and
processing said input data using said version instance.
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Abstract
A software application architecture based on object oriented concepts. According to an aspect, upgrading the application to support newer versions of a standard describing device description is simplified. According to another aspect, the application is designed to be tolerant to changes (additions or modifications) introduced by future/later versions not yet supported by the application. In an embodiment, the approaches are applied in the context of a parser designed to parse device descriptions of different versions.
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Citations
21 Claims
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1. A method of implementing an application in a process control system, said method comprising:
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providing a plurality of version objects, wherein each of said plurality of version objects respectively corresponds to a corresponding one of a plurality of versions and is designed to be instantiated by a corresponding one of a plurality of class factories, wherein each of said plurality of version objects is designed to process changes in a corresponding version compared to a prior version; forming a factory information representing the specific one of class factories which can be used to instantiate the corresponding version object; receiving a version identifier and an input data that is to be processed; examining said factory information to select a first class factory designed to instantiate a first version object which in turn is designed to process said input data; instantiating a version instance of said first version object; and processing said input data using said version instance. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A machine readable medium storing one or more sequences of instructions for causing a system to parse device descriptions in the management of a plurality of field devices in a process control plant, wherein each device description is in one of a plurality of versions of a standard and contains a plurality of sections, wherein execution of said one or more sequences of instructions by one or more processors contained in said system causes said system to perform the actions of:
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providing a plurality of parser objects, wherein each of said plurality of parser objects respectively corresponds to one of a corresponding plurality of versions and is designed to be instantiated by a corresponding one of a plurality of class factories, wherein each of said plurality of parser objects is designed to parse at least a set of sections added or modified by a corresponding version compared to a prior version; forming a factory information representing the specific one of class factories which can be used to instantiate the corresponding parser object; receiving a version identifier of a device description that is to be parsed; examining said factory information to select a first class factory designed to instantiate a first parser object which in turn is designed to parse said device description; instantiating a parser instance of said first parser object; and processing said device description using said parser instance. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
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20. A digital processing system operating in a process control plant comprising:
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a secondary storage to provide a plurality of version objects and a plurality of class factories, wherein each of said plurality of version objects respectively corresponds to a corresponding one of a plurality of versions and is designed to be instantiated by a corresponding one of said plurality of class factories, wherein each of said plurality of version objects is designed to process changes in a corresponding version compared to a prior version; a processor to form a factory information representing the specific one of class factories which can be used to instantiate the corresponding version object; an interface to receive a version identifier and an input data that is to be processed, wherein said processor is operable to; examine said factory information to select a first class factory designed to instantiate a first version object which in turn is designed to process said input data; instantiate a version instance of said first version object; and process said input data using said version instance. - View Dependent Claims (21)
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Specification