VIRTUAL PRODUCT HIERARCHIES

• US 20150154312A1
• Filed: 12/23/2013
• Published: 06/04/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Information Resources Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Information Resources Incorporated
• Inventors: Tilwani, Prakash, Potter, Robert E. II, Noojibail, Sheila J.
• Granted Patent: US 9,767,431 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders

Abstract

A base hierarchy of products or the like can be user-modified into a virtual hierarchy that is represented as a collection of changes to the base hierarchy rather than a new hierarchy stored in memory. The collection of changes can be used to enable user interactions such as queries, displays, and writes using the virtual hierarchy as thought it were an actual hierarchy stored in memory, with aspects of the virtual hierarchy dynamically created using a collection of procedures based on the changes and corresponding inverses. The representation of the modified hierarchy can be dynamically displayed to a user or otherwise processed in the same manner as other hierarchies and hierarchical data.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a query with respect to a virtual hierarchy, wherein the virtual hierarchy includes a base hierarchy and a plurality of change data;

for each change datum in the plurality of change data, identifying a corresponding inverse, thereby identifying a plurality of inverses; and

using the plurality of inverses, determining a modified query with respect to the base hierarchy, wherein the query with respect to the virtual hierarchy and the modified query with respect to the base hierarchy have an identical result.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising processing the modified query with respect to the base hierarchy and displaying a result as a result of the query against the virtual hierarchy.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of change data are arranged in an order and the modified query is determined by iteratively applying the plurality of inverses to the query in a reverse of the order.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of change data include adding a node at a specified location, and wherein the corresponding inverse includes deleting the node from the specified location.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of change data include deleting a node at a specified location, and wherein the corresponding inverse includes adding the node at the specified location.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of change data include moving a node from an initial location to a destination location, and wherein the corresponding inverse includes moving the node from the destination location to the initial location.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising displaying a result of the modified query against the base hierarchy as a result of the query against the virtual hierarchy.

8. A computer program product comprising computer executable code embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium that, when executing on one or more computing devices, performs the steps of:

receiving a query with respect to a virtual hierarchy, wherein the virtual hierarchy includes a base hierarchy and a plurality of change data;

for each change datum in the plurality of change data, identifying a corresponding inverse, thereby identifying a plurality of inverses; and

using the plurality of inverses, determining a modified query with respect to the base hierarchy, wherein the query with respect to the virtual hierarchy and the modified query with respect to the base hierarchy have an identical result.

9. The computer program product of claim 8 further comprising code that performs the step of processing the modified query with respect to the base hierarchy and displaying a result as a result of the query against the virtual hierarchy.

10. The computer program product of claim 8 wherein the plurality of change data are arranged in an order and the modified query is determined by iteratively applying the plurality of inverses to the query in a reverse of the order.

11. The computer program product of claim 8 wherein the plurality of change data include adding a node at a specified location, and wherein the corresponding inverse includes deleting the node from the specified location.

12. The computer program product of claim 8 wherein the plurality of change data include deleting a node at a specified location, and wherein the corresponding inverse includes adding the node at the specified location.

13. The computer program product of claim 8 wherein the plurality of change data include moving a node from an initial location to a destination location, and wherein the corresponding inverse includes moving the node from the destination location to the initial location.

14. The computer program product of claim 8 further comprising code that performs the step of displaying a result of the modified query against the base hierarchy as a result of the query against the virtual hierarchy.

15. A system comprising:

a processor;

memory bearing instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to receive a query with respect to a virtual hierarchy, wherein the virtual hierarchy includes a base hierarchy and a plurality of change data;

for each change datum in the plurality of change data, identify a corresponding inverse, thereby identifying a plurality of inverses;

use the plurality of inverses, and determine a modified query with respect to the base hierarchy, wherein the query with respect to the virtual hierarchy and the modified query with respect to the base hierarchy produce the same result.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the memory bearing instructions further cause the processor to process the modified query with respect to the base hierarchy, and to display the result.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the plurality of change data are arranged in an order, and the modified query is determined by iteratively applying the plurality of inverses to the query in a reverse order.

18. The system of claim 15 wherein the plurality of change data includes adding a node at a specified location, and wherein the corresponding inverse includes deleting the node from the specified location.

19. The system of claim 15 wherein the plurality of change data includes deleting a node at a specified location, and wherein the corresponding inverse includes adding the node at the specified location.

20. The system of claim 15 wherein the plurality of change data includes moving a node from an initial location to a destination location, and wherein the corresponding inverse includes moving the node from the destination location to the initial location.