System and method for transforming hierarchical objects

• US 20100023925A1
• Filed: 06/30/2009
• Published: 01/28/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/24/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sap Portals Israel Ltd (SAP SE)
• Original Assignee: Sap Portals Israel Ltd (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Igelka, Or, Shribman, Aidan Eli, Helfman, Nadav
• Granted Patent: US 9,069,739 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/110
• 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 9/4493 Object persistence

Abstract

A method and system for transforming a first object into a second object, comprising: receiving the source and second objects; subject to the objects being of attribute type, copying, the value of the source object to the second object; subject to the objects being of node type which comprises, for each member of the second object: locating a corresponding member having a corresponding name in the source object; and invoking the method for the member and the corresponding member; subject to the objects being of list type, the source object adapted to contain elements of a first type and the second object adapted to contain elements of a second type, for each element of the source object: creating a corresponding default element of the second type; and invoking the method for the element and the corresponding default element; and invoking a user-implemented transformation routine.

Claims

1. A method for transforming a source object into a destination object, comprising:

receiving the source object and the destination object;

subject to the source object and the destination object being of attribute type, copying the value of the source object to the destination object;

subject to the source object and the destination object being of node type which comprises at least one member, for each member of the destination object;

locating in the source object a corresponding member having a corresponding name; and

invoking the method for the member and the corresponding member;

subject to the source object and the destination object being of list type, the source object adapted to contain elements of a source type and the destination object adapted to contain elements of a second type, for each element of the source object;

creating a corresponding default element of the second type and adding the default element to the destination object; and

invoking the method for the element and the corresponding default element; and

invoking a user-implemented transformation routine.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising retrieving from a storage device a description of the source object or the destination object and constructing the source object or the destination object.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the source object and the destination object are hierarchical objects having members of types selected from the group consisting of:

an attribute;

a node comprising at least one attribute, node or list member; and

a list adapted to contain at least one element, the at least one element, being of type attribute or node.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the destination object is an upgrade of the source object.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the destination object is a message derived from the source object.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the source object is derived from the destination object, the destination object representing a message.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the source object and the destination object represent database objects.

8. A system for transforming a source object into a destination object, comprising:

a component implementing a class hierarchy, wherein the source object and the destination object are derived from the class hierarchy;

a base transformation component implementing automatic transformation of at least one element of the source object into at least one element of the destination object; and

a framework for user-implemented transformation routine, for allowing a user to define transformation of at least one second element of the source object into at least one second element of the destination object.

9. The system of claim 8 further comprising an input/output communication component for communicating with an input or output device.

10. The system of claim 8 wherein the source object and the destination object are hierarchical objects having members of types selected from the group consisting of:

an attribute;

a node comprising at least one attribute, node or list member; and

a list adapted to contain at least one element, the at least one element being of type attribute or node.

11. The system of claim 8 wherein the destination object is an upgrade of the source object.

12. The system of claim 8 wherein the destination object is a message derived from the source object.

13. The system of claim 8 wherein the source object is derived from the destination object representing a message.

14. The system of claim 8 wherein the source object and the destination object represent database objects.

15. A method for transforming a source hierarchical object into a destination hierarchical object, comprising:

receiving a source hierarchical object and a destination hierarchical object, the source hierarchical object and the destination hierarchical object having members of types selected from the group consisting of;

an attribute;

a node comprising at least one attribute, node or list member; and

a list adapted to contain at least one element, the at least one element being of type attribute or node;

subject to the source hierarchical object and the destination hierarchical object being of attribute type, copying the value of the source hierarchical object to the destination hierarchical object;

subject to the source hierarchical object and the destination hierarchical object being of node type which comprises at least one member, for each member of the hierarchical destination object;

locating a corresponding member having a corresponding name in the source hierarchical object; and

invoking the method for the member and the corresponding member;

subject to the source hierarchical object and the destination hierarchical object being of list type, the source hierarchical object adapted to contain elements of a first type and the destination hierarchical object adapted to contain elements of a second type, for each element of the source hierarchical object;

creating a corresponding default element of the second type; and

invoking the method for the element and the corresponding default element; and

invoking a user-implemented transformation routine.

16. A computer readable storage medium containing a set of instructions for a general purpose computer, the set of instructions comprising:

receiving a source object and a destination object;

subject to the source object and the destination object being of attribute type, copying the value of the source object to the destination object;

subject to the source object and the destination object being of node type which comprises at least one member, for each member of the destination object;

locating a corresponding member having a corresponding name in the source object; and

invoking the method for the member and the corresponding member;

subject to the source object and the destination object being of list type, the source object adapted to contain elements of a first type and the destination object adapted to contain elements of a second type, for each element of the source object;

creating a corresponding default element of the second type; and

invoking the method for the element and the corresponding default element; and

invoking a user-Implemented transformation routine.