ADDING INHERITANCE SUPPORT TO A COMPUTER PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE

• US 20110252400A1
• Filed: 04/13/2010
• Published: 10/13/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/13/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sybase Incorporated (SAP SE)
• Original Assignee: Sybase Incorporated (SAP SE)
• Inventors: SCIPIONE, Angelo Philip
• Granted Patent: US 9,250,925 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/108
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/24 Object-oriented
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4492 Inheritance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/465 Distributed object oriented systems remote method invocation [RMI] G06F9/548

Abstract

Methods, apparatus and computer program products for supporting inheritance in a programming language are provided. The method includes the steps of: 1) receiving a first programming object from a first file; 1) receiving inheritance information about the first programming object, the inheritance information being from second file; 2) analyzing the inheritance information; 3) creating a second programming object based on the first programming object and the inheritance information; 4) sending the second programming object to an editor for editing; 5) receiving a third programming object from the editor, wherein the third programming object was created by editing the second programming object; 6) creating a fourth programming object based on the first or second programming object, the third programming object and the inheritance information; and 7) storing the fourth programming object in a third file.

Claims

1. A method of providing inheritance to a programming object, comprising:

receiving a first programming object from a first document;

receiving inheritance information about the first programming object;

analyzing the inheritance information;

creating a second programming object based on the first programming object and the inheritance information;

sending the second programming object to an editor for editing;

receiving a third programming object from the editor, wherein the third programming object was created by editing the second programming object;

creating a fourth programming object based on the first or second programming object, the third programming object and the inheritance information; and

storing the fourth programming object in a second document.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the programming objects are described in XML markup language.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the XML markup language is XAML

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the creating a second programming object comprises:

recursively analyzing each element of each node of each ancestor of the first programming object;

determining properties to be inherited by the first programming object based on the analyzing; and

merging the determined properties into the second programming object.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the second programming object is a temporary version of the first programming object for editing in the editor, the second programming object including all inherited properties of the ancestors of the first programming object.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the determined properties of the first programming object comprise differences between the first programming object and ancestors of the first programming object.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the creating a third programming object comprises:

determining differences between the first programming object and the second programming object; and

creating the third programming object based on the differences between the first programming object and the second programming object.

8. A system for providing inheritance to a programming language comprising:

object storage containing inheritance information about programming objects; and

a computing device coupled to the object storage, and including;

an editor and

an inheritance module, the inheritance module configured to interface with the editor, and for each programming object edited by the editor,

the inheritance module is configured to;

intercept the programming object and

automatically create a replacement inheritance supported object for editing by the editor by selectively merging the programming object with a lineage of its ancestors according to rules of inheritance, upon loading of the programming object at design-time and at build-time.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the programming objects are described in XML markup language.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the XML markup language is XAML

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the selective merging configured to be performed by the inheritance module is performed by:

recursively analyzing each element of each node of each ancestor of the programming object;

determining properties to be inherited by the programming object based on the analyzing; and

merging the determined properties into the replacement inheritance supported object.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the second programming object is a temporary version of the first programming object for editing in the editor, the second programming object including all inherited properties of ancestors of the first programming object.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the determined properties of the first programming object comprise the differences between the first programming object and ancestors of the first programming object.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein the inheritance module is configured to create third programming object by:

determining differences between the first programming object and the second programming object; and

creating the third programming object based on the differences between the first programming object and the second programming object.

15. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that, if executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform a method comprising:

receiving a first programming object;

receiving inheritance information about the first programming object;

analyzing the inheritance information;

creating a second programming object based on the first programming object and the inheritance information;

sending the second programming object to an editor for editing;

receiving an third programming object from the editor, wherein the third programming object was created by editing the second programming object;

creating a fourth programming object based on the first or second programming object, the third programming object and the inheritance information; and

storing the fourth programming object.