Method and system for referring to and binding to objects using identifier objects

• US 5,581,760 A
• Filed: 07/06/1993
• Issued: 12/03/1996
• Est. Priority Date: 07/06/1992
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Williams, Antony S., Atkinson, Robert G., Jung, Edward K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Kriess, Kevin A.
• Application Number:
  US08/088,724
• Time in Patent Office: 1,246 Days
• Field of Search: 395/700, 395/650
• US Class Current: 717/108
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/289 Object oriented databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/12 Use of codes for handling textual entities
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/131 Fragmentation of text files, e.g. creating reusable text-blocks; Linking to fragments, e.g. using XInclude; Namespaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/134 Hyperlinking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/137 Hierarchical processing, e.g. outlines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/18 of spreadsheets form-filling G06F40/174
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/449 Object-oriented method invocation or resolution
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/465 Distributed object oriented systems remote method invocation [RMI] G06F9/548
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/543 User-generated data transfer, e.g. clipboards, dynamic data exchange [DDE], object linking and embedding [OLE]
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure

Abstract

A method and system for referring to and binding to objects using a moniker object is provided. In a preferred embodiment, a moniker object contains information to identify linked source data and provides methods through which a program can bind to the linked source data. A binding method is provided that returns an instance of an interface through which the linked source data can be accessed. The moniker object can identify source data that is stored persistently or nonpersistently. In addition, moniker objects can be composed to form a composite moniker object. A composite moniker object is used to identify linked source data that is nested in other data. In a preferred embodiment, the moniker object provides other methods including a reducing method that returns a more efficient representation of the moniker object; equality and hash methods for comparing moniker objects; and inverse, common prefix, and relative-path-to methods for comparing and locating moniker objects from other moniker objects. Several implementations of a moniker object are provided including a file moniker, an item moniker, a generic composite moniker, a pointer moniker, and an anti moniker. Each implementation is a moniker class and has a class identifier that identifies code to manage the moniker class.

Claims

1. A method in a computer system for binding to a source object, the computer system having a destination object, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

instantiating a moniker object, the instantiated moniker object having a moniker class identifier that identifies binding code that, when invoked, locates and connects to the source object;

storing a reference to the source object in the instantiated moniker object as naming information, the source object associated with server code;

storing in the destination object a reference to the instantiated moniker object having the stored reference to the source object;

when the destination object is accessed,

retrieving the reference stored in the destination object to the instantiated moniker object; and

invoking the binding code identified by the moniker class identifier of the instantiated moniker object referred to by the retrieved reference;

when the binding code is invoked,

locating and invoking the server code associated with the source object referred to by the naming information of the instantiated moniker object referred to by the retrieved reference; and

requesting the server code to connect to the source object referred to by the naming information of the instantiated moniker object referred to by the retrieved reference; and

when the server code is invoked,

instantiating the source object referred to by the naming information of the instantiated moniker object referred to by the retrieved reference;

loading data into the instantiated source object; and

returning to the invoked binding code an indication of the instantiated source object with the loaded data, wherein the loaded data of the instantiated source object is accessed using the returned indication.

2. A method in a computer system of creating an object that refers to a source object, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

creating an instance of an identifier object of an identifier class, the identifier class having a binding member function that, when invoked, binds to the source object by locating and accessing the source object;

storing a reference to the source object in the created identifier object as naming information that is used by the binding member function to bind to the source object; and

storing a reference to the created identifier object having the stored reference to the source object that is used when binding to the source object.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the binding member function of the created identifier object, when invoked, binds by further instantiating the source object referred to by the naming information of the created identifier object and returning a pointer to the instantiated source object.

4. The method of claim 2, the identifier object having a reducing member function for creating a reduced identifier object that is a canonical form of the identifier object and that identifies the source object.

5. A method for binding to the source object in accordance with the method of claim 4 wherein the binding member function of the identifier object, in response to being invoked, invokes the reducing member function to create the reduced identifier object and then invokes a binding member function of the reduced identifier object to bind to the source object.

6. The method of claim 2, the identifier object having a reducing member function, wherein the reducing member function, when invoked, parses and processes, a script that, when processed, identifies the source object and creates and returns another identifier object that is a reduced form of the identifier object.

7. The method of claim 2, the identifier object having a macro that, when processed, identifies the source object and having a reducing member function that, when invoked, parses and processes the macro to create and return a reduced identifier object that is a reduced form of the identifier object and that refers to the source object.

8. The method of claim 2, the identifier object having a reducing member function that, when invoked, executes a query that, when satisfied, identifies a source object from a plurality of source objects.

9. The method of claim 2, the computer system having client code, the source object associated with server code, wherein the step of creating the instance of the identifier object is performed by executing the server code, the method further comprising the steps of:

terminating the execution of the server code after creating the instance of the identifier object; and

after terminating the execution of the server code, locating and accessing the source object by executing the binding member function of the created identifier object, wherein the binding member function launches the server code to locate and access the source object referred to by the naming information of the created identifier object.

10. A method in a computer system for composing a first identifier object with a second identifier object to create a composite identifier object that refers to a source object, the first identifier object having an internal state that refers to a container object and having a first class identifier that identifies binding code that, when invoked, locates and connects to the container object referred to by the internal state, the second identifier having an internal state that refers to an item and having a second class identifier that identifies binding code that, when invoked, locates and connects to the item referred to by the internal state, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

creating an instance of a composite identifier object, the created composite identifier object having an internal state and having a composite class identifier that identifies binding code that, when invoked, locates and connects to the source object referred to by the internal state of the created composite identifier object;

storing a reference to the first identifier object in the internal state of the created composite identifier object; and

storing a reference to the second identifier object in the internal state of the created composite identifier object, wherein the second identifier object is composed with the first identifier object to refer to the item within the container object as the source object.

11. A method for binding to a source object in accordance with the method of claim 10, further comprising the steps of:

when the binding code identified by the composite class identifier is invoked, invoking the binding code identified by the second class identifier of the second identifier object passing the stored reference to the first identifier object; and

when the binding code identified by the second class identifier of the second identifier object is invoked,

invoking the binding code of the first identifier object to bind to the container object referred to by the internal state of the first identifier object;

receiving a reference to the bound container object referred to by the first identifier object; and

using the received reference to the bound container object to locate and connect to the item referred to by the internal state of the second identifier object, thereby binding to the source object referred to by the composite identifier object.

12. The method of claim 11, the binding code identified by the composite class identifier of the composite identifier object having a bind context that contains indicators to instantiated objects created in the process of binding to the source object, wherein the bind context is passed, when the binding code identified by the class identifier of the second identifier object is invoked and when the binding code identified by the class identifier of the first identifier object is invoked, to prevent unnecessary creation of already existing objects.

13. The method of claim 10, the internal state of the composite identifier object being structured in a composition sequence from left to right such that the reference to the first identifier object is conceptually to the left of the reference to the second identifier object in the composition sequence and such that the reference to the second identifier object is conceptually at the rightmost end of the composition sequence.

14. A computer system for creating an object that refers and binds to source data comprising:

means for instantiating an identifier object having a class identifier that identifies binding code; and

means for storing in the instantiated identifier object a reference to the source data as identifying data, wherein the binding code, when invoked, locates and connects to the source data referred to by the stored identifying data; and

means for storing in the instantiated identifier object a class identifier that identifies the binding code.

15. The system of claim 14, further comprising means for storing the instantiated identifier object in a persistent medium.

16. A method in a computer system for binding to source data, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

creating an instance of an identifier object, the created identifier object having naming information that identifies the source data and having a class identifier that identifies binding code that, when invoked, binds by locating and connecting to the source data identified by the naming information;

invoking the binding code identified by the class identifier of the created identifier object to bind to the source data; and

when the binding code is invoked, returning an indicator of the bound source data.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the source data is stored in a file, the source data having a data type that indicates associated server code that, when executed, manages the source data, wherein the naming information that identifies the source data is a file name, the file name indicating the data type of the source data stored within the file, and wherein the binding code identified by the class identifier of the identifier object, when executed, invokes the server code associated with the data type indicated by the file name stored as the naming information, requests the invoked server code to load the source data from the file referred to by the file name, and returns a reference to the loaded data.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising the step of storing the created identifier object in a persistent medium.

19. A method in a computer system of generating an object that refers to source data, the computer system having a destination object, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

creating an instance of a moniker object, the created moniker object having a moniker class identifier that identifies binding code that, when executed, binds to the source data;

storing a reference to the source data in the created moniker object as naming information;

storing the class identifier in the created moniker object; and

storing in the destination object a reference to the created moniker object having the stored reference to the source data.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising the step of accessing the source data from the destination object by retrieving the reference to the created moniker object that is stored in the destination object, and invoking the binding code identified by the moniker class identifier of the created moniker object referred to by the retrieved reference to resolve the stored reference to the source data into locatable data and to locate and connect to the locatable data.

21. The method of claim 20, the source data having associated server code that, when executed, manages the source data, wherein the step of accessing the source data by invoking the binding code identified by the moniker class identifier of the created moniker object further comprises the substeps of:

locating the server code associated with the source data referred to by the naming information of the created moniker object referred to by the retrieved reference;

invoking the located server code;

requesting the invoked server code to connect to the source data referred to by the naming information; and

when the server code is invoked,

instantiating a source object;

loading the source data referred to by the naming information into the instantiated source object; and

returning an indication of the instantiated source object having the loaded source data.

22. The method of claim 20, the computer system having a computer memory and having a source object that contains the source data, the source object having server code that, when executed, manages the source object, wherein the step of accessing the source data by invoking the binding code identified by the moniker class identifier of the created moniker object further comprises the substeps of:

determining whether an instance of the source object already exists in the computer memory and whether the server code is already launched;

when it is determined that the instance of the source object already exists and the server code is already launched, obtaining an indicator to the instance of the source object; and

returning the indicator.

23. The method of claim 22 wherein the step of determining whether the instance of the source object already exists further comprises the step of determining whether an entry for the created moniker object exists in a running object table.

24. A method in a computer system of binding to source data having associated persistent storage for containing the source data, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

instantiating an identifier object, the instantiated identifier object having a class identifier that identifies binding code that, when executed, binds to the source data;

storing a reference to the source data in the instantiated identifier object as naming information; and

accessing the source data by invoking the binding code identified by the class identifier of the instantiated identifier object to obtain an indicator of the persistent storage associated with the source data.

25. A method in a computer system of locating source data, the computer system having a destination object, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

creating an instance of a link object, the link object having an absolute location reference for referring to the location of the source data relative to an origin location, having a relative location reference for referring to the location of the source data relative to the location of the destination object, and having a link class identifier that identifies binding code that, when executed, locates and connects to the source data; and

locating the source data by invoking the binding code identified by the link class identifier of the created link object, the binding code using one of the absolute location reference and the relative location reference to locate the source data.

26. The method of claim 25, further comprising the step of storing the link object in the destination object.

27. The method of claim 26 wherein the step of locating the source data by invoking the binding code locates the source data using the relative location reference of the stored link object when the source data and the destination object have moved to new locations but have not moved relative to each other.

28. The method of claim 25 wherein the absolute location reference is a moniker object and the relative location reference is a moniker object, each moniker object having a moniker class identifier that identifies binding code that, when executed, binds to the source data, and wherein the binding code identified by the link class identifier of the created link object invokes the binding code identified by the moniker class identifier of one of the moniker objects to locate the source data.

29. A method in a computer system of generating a reduced reference to source data, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

creating an instance of a moniker object, the created moniker object having a moniker class identifier that identifies a reduce member function;

storing a reference to the source data in the created moniker object as naming information; and

reducing the stored reference to the source data to a canonical form by invoking the reduce member function, wherein the reduce member function creates a reduced moniker object, the created reduced moniker object having reduced naming information that refers, in the canonical form, to the source data referred to by the naming information of the created moniker object.

30. The method of claim 29 wherein the step of reducing the stored reference to the source data is repeated using the created reduced moniker object until no further reductions are possible.

31. The method of claim 29, further comprising the steps of:

requesting a number of times to perform the step of reducing; and

repeating, the requested number of times, the step of reducing the stored reference to the source data using the created reduced moniker object for each subsequent step of reducing.

32. The method of claim 29 wherein the stored reference to the source data contains a query that, when executed, identifies the source data and wherein the step of reducing the stored reference executes the query to create the reduced moniker object.

33. The method of claim 32, the reduced moniker object having a class identifier that identifies a binding member function that, when invoked, uses the reduced naming information to locate the source data, the moniker class identifier identifying a binding member function to locate and connect to the source data referred to by the naming information of the created moniker object, wherein the binding member function of the created moniker object, in response to being invoked, invokes the reduce member function of the created moniker object to obtain the reduced moniker object and then invokes the binding member function identified by the class identifier of the reduced moniker object to locate and connect to the source data.

34. The method of claim 29 wherein the stored reference to the source data contains a macro script that, when processed, identifies the source data and wherein the step of reducing the stored reference parses and processes the macro script to create the reduced moniker object.

35. The method of claim 34, the reduced moniker object having a class identifier that identifies a binding member function that, when invoked, uses the reduced naming information to locate the source data, the moniker class identifier identifying a binding member function to locate and connect to the source data referred to by the naming information of the created moniker object, wherein the binding member function of the created moniker object, in response to being invoked, invokes the reduce member function of the created moniker object to obtain the reduced moniker object and then invokes the binding member function identified by the class identifier of the reduced moniker object to locate and connect to the source data.

36. A method in a computer system of comparing a first object that refers to source data to a second object that refers to source data, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

creating an instance of a moniker object, the created moniker object having naming information that refers to source data and having a moniker class identifier that identifies comparison code that, when executed, determines whether the moniker object is equal to another moniker object; and

invoking the comparison code, passing a requested moniker object, the requested moniker object having naming information that refers to source data, to determine whether the created moniker object is equal to the requested moniker object.

37. The method of claim 36, the moniker class identifier identifying binding code to locate and connect to the source data referred to by the naming information of the created moniker object, wherein the requested moniker object passed to the comparison code is selected from an entry in a running object table, and wherein the step of invoking the comparison code is performed by the binding code, when the binding code is executed, to determine whether the created moniker object refers to source data already referred to by the entry in the running object table.

38. The method of claim 36 wherein the comparison code determines equality based upon whether the created moniker object is a member of a set of moniker objects represented by the requested moniker object.

39. The method of claim 36, wherein the comparison code determines equality based upon whether the structure of the created moniker object naming information is equivalent to the naming information of the requested moniker object.

40. The method of claim 36 wherein the comparison code determines equality based upon when the created moniker object and the requested moniker object refer to the same source data.

41. A method in a computer system for determining a common prefix between a first identifier object and a second identifier object, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

creating an instance of the first identifier object, the created first identifier object having naming information that refers to first source data;

creating an instance of the second identifier object, the created second identifier object having naming information that refers to second source data, the second identifier object having a class identifier that identifies code having a prefix determination member function that, when executed, determines a common prefix between the naming information of the created second identifier object and a requested location; and

invoking the prefix determination member function of the second identifier object, with an indicator to the naming information of the created first identifier object as the requested location, to determine a common prefix between the naming information of the created second identifier object and the naming information of the created first identifier object.

42. The method of claim 41, the first source data having a location, the second source data having a location, the naming information of the first identifier object divisible into a plurality of portions, each portion having a position and identifying a part of the location of the first source data, the naming information of the second identifier object divisible into a plurality of portions, each portion having a position and identifying a part of the location of the second source data, and wherein the step of invoking the prefix determination function member comprises the substeps of:

comparing in order, starting with a first position, each portion of the naming information of the second identifier object with the positionally corresponding portion of the naming information of the first identifier object until one portion of the naming information of the second identifier object compares unequally to the positionally corresponding portion of the naming information of the first identifier object; and

returning an indicator of the portions of the second identifier object that compare equally to the corresponding portions of the first identifier object.

43. The method of claim 42 wherein two portions compare equally only if each portion is in the identical structural position relative to the naming information to which the portion belongs.

44. The method of claim 41 wherein the prefix determination function member determines a common prefix by determining whether the naming information of the second identifier object is identical to the naming information of the first identifier object.

45. The method of claim 41 wherein the prefix determination function member determines a common prefix by determining whether the second identifier object is equal to the first identifier object.

46. The method of claim 41 wherein the naming information of the second identifier object is a path name to a file and wherein the step of determining the common prefix is accomplished by determining a portion of the path name of the naming information of the second identifier object that is equal to a portion of the naming information of the first identifier object.

47. The method of claim 41 wherein the first identifier object and the second identifier object are instances of a composite identifier object, the composite identifier object having naming information with a plurality of ordered components, each component indicating an identifier object, and wherein the step of invoking the prefix determination function member to determine a common prefix further comprises the substeps of:

comparing in order each component of the naming information of the second identifier object with the positionally corresponding component of the naming information of the first identifier object until one component of the naming information of the second identifier object compares unequally to the positionally corresponding component of the naming information of the first identifier object; and

indicating the components of the second identifier object that compare equally to the corresponding portions of the first identifier object.

48. The method of claim 47 wherein the prefix determination function member identified by the class identifier of the second identifier object has no structural knowledge of the identifier objects indicated by the components of the naming information of the second identifier object.

49. The method of claim 41, the code identified by the class identifier of the second identifier object having a relative path function member for determining a relative path to a requested identifier object, wherein the step of invoking the prefix determination function member is performed under the control of the relative path function member.

50. A computer system for binding to source data comprising:

means for generating a moniker object having naming information that identifies source data and having a class identifier that identifies a binding member function that, when executed, binds to the source data identified by the naming information and returns an indicator of the bound source data; and

means for invoking the binding member function of the moniker object.

51. A method in a computer system for binding to a source object, the computer system having a destination object, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

instantiating a first moniker object of a moniker class, the moniker class identified by a moniker class identifier and having binding code that, when invoked, connects to the source object;

storing a source reference to the source object in the instantiated first moniker object as naming information, the source object associated with server code;

storing in the destination object a moniker reference to the instantiated first moniker object having the stored source reference;

storing the destination object in persistent storage including,

accessing the moniker class identifier and the naming information referred to by the moniker reference;

storing in persistent storage the accessed moniker class identifier; and

storing in persistent storage the accessed naming information;

when the destination object is accessed from persistent storage,

retrieving the stored moniker class identifier and naming information from persistent storage;

instantiating a second moniker object of the moniker class identified by the retrieved moniker class identifier;

storing the retrieved naming information in the instantiated second moniker object; and

invoking the binding code of the moniker class;

when the binding code is invoked,

invoking the server code associated with the source object referred to by the naming information stored in the second moniker object; and

requesting the server code to connect to the source object referred to by the naming information stored in the second moniker object; and

when the server code is invoked,

instantiating the source object referred to by the naming information stored in the second moniker object;

loading data into the instantiated source object; and

returning to the invoked binding code an indication of the instantiated source object with the loaded data, wherein the loaded data of the instantiated source object is accessed using the returned indication.