INSTRUMENTATION OF SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS FOR CONFIGURATION THEREOF

• US 20140040857A1
• Filed: 10/08/2013
• Published: 02/06/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/04/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Trinchini, Patrizio, Villani, Massimo
• Granted Patent: US 8,978,019 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/109
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/34 Graphical or visual programming
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/71 Version control security arrangements therefor G06F21/57; Configuration management

Abstract

A solution is proposed for instrumenting a software application for configuration thereof. A corresponding method includes scanning a source code of the software application for detecting an indication of a set of configuration parameters each one being identified by a pre-defined non-executable statement, creating a set of instances of a pre-defined configuration object each one mapping a corresponding one of the configuration parameters, the configuration object being designed to manage the corresponding configuration parameter, and creating a set of configuration interfaces for editing the configuration parameters, the configuration interfaces being operable to interact with each instance of the configuration object to get and set the corresponding configuration parameter.

Claims

1. A method for instrumenting a software application for configuration thereof, the method comprising:

scanning a source code of the software application for detecting an indication of a set of configuration parameters, each configuration parameter being identified by a pre-defined non-executable statement,

creating a set of instances of a pre-defined configuration object, each configuration object mapping a corresponding one of the configuration parameters, the configuration object being designed to manage the corresponding configuration parameter, and

creating a set of configuration interfaces for editing the configuration parameters, the configuration interfaces being operable to interact with each instance of the configuration object to get and set the corresponding configuration parameter.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the software application comprises a set of software components adapted to run in a set of software containers of an application server each one for interfacing the software components of a corresponding type with a software environment of a data processing server, the method being executed under the control of the application server in response to a deployment of the software application on the data processing server.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the software application is a JEE software application and the application server is a JEE application server, each non-executable statement being an annotation and each configuration interface being a web page.

4. The method according to claim 2, wherein the application server comprises an administration console for configuring the application server and further configuration parameters of the software application being pre-defined in the application server, the creating the set of configuration interfaces comprising:

integrating the configuration interfaces into the administration console.

5. The method according to claim 2, wherein the software application comprises a plurality of dedicated ones of the components comprising the non-executable statements with at least one of the dedicated components extending another one of the dedicated components, the creating the set of configuration interfaces comprising:

creating a plurality of configuration interfaces each one for the configuration parameters of a corresponding one of the dedicated components, the configuration interfaces being arranged in a hierarchical structure according to the extensions of the dedicated components.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the scanning the source code of the software application further comprises:

scanning the source code for detecting a set of sections of configuration parameters each one being identified by a pre-defined further non-executable statement, and

wherein the creating the set of configuration interfaces comprises;

grouping the configuration parameters of each section in the configuration interfaces.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein the configuration interfaces are window forms, the configuration parameters of each section being grouped in a corresponding panel of the window forms.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the creating the set of configuration interfaces comprises:

associating a set of validations rule indicated in the corresponding non-executable statement with each configuration parameter in the configuration interfaces, the configuration interfaces being operable to invoke a predefined validation method in response the an editing of each configuration parameter for validating the configuration parameter according to the associated validation rules.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein at least one of the validation rules constrains the corresponding configuration parameter according to at least another one of the configuration parameters.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein the creating the set of instances of a pre-defined configuration object comprises:

initializing each instance of the configuration object for applying the corresponding configuration parameter to the software application in a cold mode or in a warm mode when the corresponding non-executable statement comprises a pre-defined cold indicator or a predefined warm indicator, respectively.

11. The method according to claim 10, wherein the initializing each instance of the configuration object comprises:

initializing the instance of the configuration object for each configuration parameter to be applied in the warm mode to invoke a corresponding application method in response to an update of the configuration parameter.

12. The method according to claim 11, wherein the initializing the instance of the configuration object for each configuration parameter to be applied in the warm mode comprising:

scanning the source code of the software application for detecting the corresponding application method being identified by a pre-defined still further non-executable statement comprising an identifier of the configuration parameter, and

associating the application method with the corresponding instance of the configuration object.

13. A computer program comprising program code stored on a computer readable storage medium for causing a data processing system to perform the method according to claim 1 when the computer program is executed on the data processing system.