METHOD TO TRACK APPLICATION CONTEXT AND APPLICATION IDENTIFICATION

• US 20100115530A1
• Filed: 10/30/2008
• Published: 05/06/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sun Microsystems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sun Microsystems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Ravishankar, Tanjore, Violleau, Thierry, Ahmad, Saqib
• Granted Patent: US 9,286,108 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/108
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/461 Saving or restoring of program or task context
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/20 Services signaling; Auxiliary data signalling, i.e. transmitting data via a non-traffic channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/50 Service provisioning or reconfiguring

Abstract

One particular implementation may take the form of a system or method for tracking application identification and application context in a context-isolated computing environment. The method may store such application information to reduce redundant information being stored on a stack. More particularly, the embodiment may store the application information in a context-specific marker frame. The context-specific marker frame may be stored once on the stack or it may be stored separately from the stack to maintain a small stack size. In another implementation, an invocation handler method may be called to store the redundant information about the executing application. The invocation handler may store the necessary information in a well-known location for later use by the virtual machine. The invocation handler may also provide further benefits, such as synchronization to ensure thread safety on shareable objects.

Claims

1. A method for managing application information comprising:

detecting a context switch in a context-isolated computing environment;

storing context-specific information in a first known location in memory, the context-specific information comprising the context of an executing application and a first application, wherein the first application is an application through which the context was entered; and

storing application-specific information in a second known location in memory, the application-specific information comprising information about the executing application on a processing thread.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the storing context-specific information operation further comprises:

creating a context-specific marker frame to store the context-specific information; and

pushing the context-specific marker frame onto a stack, the stack configured to maintain information about applications executing in the computing environment.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the storing context-specific information operation further comprises:

accessing an invocation handler function, and

providing the context-specific information to the invocation handler function, wherein the invocation handler function is configured to store the context-specific information in the first known location in memory.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the context-isolated computing environment is supported within a smart card computing system.

5. A method for managing a stack in a smart card computing system, comprising:

receiving, from a first application executing in a first execution context, a request to communicate with a second application executing in a second execution context;

creating a context-specific marker frame, the context-specific marker frame configured to store context-specific information about the request;

pushing the context-specific marker frame on the stack;

creating a stack frame, the stack frame configured to store application-specific information about the second application and not context-specific information; and

pushing the stack frame on the stack on top of the context-specific marker frame.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the context-specific information comprises an identification of the second execution context and the second application executing in the second execution context.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the context-specific marker frame further comprises a bit flag, the method further comprising:

setting the bit flag when the context-specific marker frame is created.

8. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

popping the stack frame off of the stack;

analyzing the application-specific information about the second application;

after popping the stack frame off of the stack, popping the context-specific marker frame off of the stack; and

analyzing the context-specific information.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

searching the stack to locate the bit flag of the context-specific marker frame; and

analyzing the context-specific information included in the context-specific marker frame when the bit flag is detected.

10. A method for reducing information stored on a stack of a context-isolated computing environment, the method comprising:

detecting a context switch;

accessing an invocation handler program;

providing context-specific information to the invocation handler program, wherein the invocation handler function is configured to store the context-specific information in a known location in memory;

creating a stack frame, the stack frame configured to store application-specific information and not context-specific information; and

pushing the stack frame on the stack.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the context-specific information stored by the invocation handler program includes the context of an executing application and the application that the context was first entered through.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

popping the stack frame off of the stack;

analyzing the application-specific information;

accessing the invocation handler program, the invocation handler program configured to retrieve the stored context-specific information; and

analyzing the context-specific information.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the invocation handler program is further configured to maintain integrity of the executing application when executed in a multi-threaded context-isolated computing environment.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the invocation handler program comprises a sequence of instructions in a Java-based language.

15. A system for managing a stack comprising:

a machine-readable medium having stored thereon data representing sequences of instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising;

detecting a context switch in a context-isolated computing environment;

pushing a context-specific marker frame on the stack, the context-specific marker frame including context-specific information of an executing application; and

pushing a stack frame on the stack, the stack frame including application-specific information and not context specific information.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the context-specific marker frame includes a bit flag and the sequences of instructions stored on the machine-readable medium causes the processor to perform operations further comprising:

setting the bit flag when the context-specific marker frame is created.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the context-specific information comprises the context of an executing application.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the context-specific information comprises an application through which a context was first entered.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the application-specific information comprises a currently executing application on a processing thread.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein the sequences of instructions stored on the machine-readable medium further causes the processor to perform operations comprising:

popping the stack frame off of the stack;

analyzing the information about the executing application;

after popping the stack frame off of the stack, popping the context-specific marker frame off of the stack; and

analyzing the context-specific information.

21. The system of claim 16, wherein the sequences of instructions stored on the machine-readable medium further causes the processor to perform operations comprising:

searching the stack to locate the bit flag of the context-specific marker frame; and

analyzing the context-specific information managed by the context-specific marker frame when the bit flag is detected.

22. The system of claim 15 wherein the machine-readable media and processor are located within a smart card computing system.