Product Lifecycle Management Using a Sparsely Populated Table

• US 20110179090A1
• Filed: 01/20/2011
• Published: 07/21/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/21/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Incorporated (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Incorporated (Siemens AG)
• Inventors: Sivaram, Ashok, Viswanathan, Sunil, Hinton, William A., Patankar, Kaushal
• Application Number:
  US13/009,944
• Publication Number:
  US 20110179090A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/803
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/00 Computer-aided design [CAD]

Abstract

A product lifecycle management (PLM) system, method, and machine-readable medium. A method includes receiving a command to create a parameter definition for a PLM object. The method includes, in response to the command, creating a table definition object and a table object based on the table definition object. The method includes creating at least one cell associated with the table object of an object type that describes an object parameter, and using the table object as an attribute of the parameter definition.

Claims

1. A method, performed by a product lifecycle management (PLM) system, comprising:

receiving a command to create a parameter definition for a PLM object;

in response to the command, creating a table definition object and a table object based on the table definition object;

creating at least one cell associated with the table object of an object type that describes an object parameter;

using the table object as an attribute of the parameter definition.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the PLM system receives label and size information for the table object and stores the label and size information in the table definition object.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the PLM system receives the object type.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the object type is one of Integer, String, Double, Boolean, Date, SED, Hex, BCD, or BitMap.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one cell is contained in a variable length array associated with the table object.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the PLM system receives additional table information for the table that includes at least one of a name, a description, unique identifier corresponding to the PLM object, size units, a size, a resolution, row descriptors, and column descriptors.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the table object is stored as a sparsely-populated table.

8. A product lifecycle management (PLM) system, comprising:

a processor; and

a storage connected to be accessed by the processor, wherein the PLM system is configured to perform the steps of

receiving a command to create a parameter definition for a PLM object;

in response to the command, creating a table definition object and a table object based on the table definition object;

creating at least one cell associated with the table object of an object type that describes an object parameter;

using the table object as an attribute of the parameter definition.

9. The PLM system of claim 8, wherein the PLM system receives label and size information for the table object and stores the label and size information in the table definition object.

10. The PLM system of claim 8, wherein the PLM system receives the object type.

11. The PLM system of claim 8, wherein the object type is one of Integer, String, Double, Boolean, Date, SED, Hex, BCD, or BitMap.

12. The PLM system of claim 8, wherein the at least one cell is contained in a variable length array associated with the table object.

13. The PLM system of claim 8, wherein the PLM system receives additional table information for the table that includes at least one of a name, a description, a unique identifier corresponding to the PLM object, size units, a size, a resolution, row descriptors, and column descriptors.

14. The PLM system of claim 8, wherein the table object is stored as a sparsely-populated table.

15. A tangible machine-readable medium encoded with executable instructions, that, when executed, cause a product lifecycle management (PLM) system to perform the steps of:

receiving a command to create a parameter definition for a PLM object;

in response to the command, creating a table definition object and a table object based on the table definition object;

creating at least one cell associated with the table object of an object type that describes an object parameter;

using the table object as an attribute of the parameter definition.

16. The machine-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the instructions further cause the PLM system to receive label and size information for the table object and stores the label and size information in the table definition object.

17. The machine-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the instructions further cause the PLM system to receive the object type.

18. The machine-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the object type is one of Integer, String, Double, Boolean, Date, SED, Hex, BCD, or BitMap.

19. The machine-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the at least one cell is contained in a variable length array associated with the table object.

20. The machine-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the instructions further cause the PLM system to receive additional table information for the table that includes at least one of a name, a description, a unique identifier corresponding to the PLM object, size units, a size, a resolution, row descriptors, and column descriptors.

21. The machine-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the table object is stored as a sparsely-populated table.