METHOD OF TRANSMITTING DATA STRUCTURES FROM ONE COMPUTER TO ANOTHER COMPUTER

• US 20160205170A1
• Filed: 08/20/2014
• Published: 07/14/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/22/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Deep-Secure Limited
• Original Assignee: Deep-Secure Limited
• Inventors: Wiseman, Simon Robert
• Granted Patent: US 10,313,454 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/02 Topology update or discovery
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/025 for remote control or remote monitoring of applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/75 Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display

Abstract

A data structure is transmitted from a first computer to a second computer by transmitting a plurality of messages from the first computer to the second computer. Each message contains data of a node of the structure and one or more references to child pointer locations in previously transmitted nodes. The data of each transmitted node is stored in the second computer, and the location of each node is stored in a table of addresses and the or each reference includes an index into the table of addresses. The first computer may then use indexes into the table to identify which nodes need updating, and thus avoid the need for the first computer to know how the second computer is allocating nodes in memory. The or each reference may include an index into an array of child pointers belonging to a node, may include the sequence number of the parent node of the node being transmitted and may also include the index into the parent node'"'"'s children to the pointer to the node being transmitted.

Claims

1. A method of transmitting an acyclic graph data structure from a first computer to a second computer comprising the steps of:

transmitting a plurality of messages from the first computer to the second computer, each message containing data of a node of the transmitted data structure and one or more references to child pointer locations in any previously transmitted parent nodes to that node;

storing the data of each transmitted node in a memory of the second computer; and

storing the location of address at which each node is stored in the memory of the second computer in a table of addresses; and

storing a child pointer to each node stored in the second computer at the or each child pointer location referenced in the message, wherein the or each reference to a child pointer location comprises an index into the table of addresses.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the or each reference to a child pointer location further comprises an index into an array of child pointers belonging to a node.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the address of a node stored in the table is removed when the node has been completed in the second computer.

5. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the table of addresses is represented as a list of table frames referenced by a table of pointers.

6. A method as claimed in claim 5 wherein the address of a anode stored in the table frames is removed from the table frames when pointers to child nodes have been stored at all child pointer locations and table frames are reused once they become empty.

8. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein an application running on the second computer begins processing the data structure before it has been entirely received by the second computer.

9. A method as claimed in claim 8 wherein the processing of the data structure is suspended when the application seeks to process an incomplete part of the data structure, and resumes when that part of the data structure has been completed.

10. A method as claimed in claim 9 wherein a variable is set by the application when it seeks to process an incomplete part of the data structure, and when nodes are created and pointers updated the referenced location is checked against the variable in order to determine if the application may continue.

11. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the second computer constructs nodes in its memory in response to the messages received in such a way that child pointer references that have not been populated can be distinguished from the remainder of the node.

12. A method as claimed in claim 11 wherein the second computer validates the references to child pointer locations contained in the messages by checking if the location they reference is a child pointer that has not been populated.

13. A method as claimed in claim 11 wherein a tag bit associated with each data location is used to distinguish between a location that contains a child pointer that has yet to be populated and a location that contains a data value or populated child pointer.

14. A method as claimed in claim 11 wherein a child pointer that has yet to be populated is distinguished from a location that contains a data value or populated child pointer by containing a special value that is never used as a data value or populated child pointer.

15. A method as claimed in claim 11 wherein a child pointer that has yet to be populated is assigned a NULL value.

16. A method as claimed in claim 12 wherein a tag bit associated with each data location is used to distinguish between a location that contains a child pointer that has yet to be populated and a location that contains a data value or populated child pointer.

17. A method as claimed in claim 12 wherein a child pointer that has yet to be populated is distinguished from a location that contains a data value or populated child pointer by containing a special value that is never used as a data value or populated child pointer.

18. A method as claimed in claim 12 wherein a child pointer that has yet to be populated is assigned a NULL value.

3. (canceled)

7. (canceled)

19. A method of transmitting a data structure from a first computer to a second computer comprising the steps of:

transmitting a plurality of messages from the first computer to the second computer, each message containing data of a node of the structure and one or more references to child pointer locations in previously transmitted nodes;

storing the data of each transmitted node in the second computer; and

storing the location of each node in a table of addresses wherein the or each reference comprises an index into the table of addresses.