Multi-platform object-oriented software development and deployment system
First Claim
1. A method of providing an object-oriented structure to a selected computer system having a first operating system, comprising:
- providing a library of classes to the selected compouter system;
developing the object-oriented structure, having a plurality of inter-relations among a plurality of selected objects, on a second computer system having a second operating system different from said first operating system;
archiving the inter-relations among the selected objects in the object-oriented structure to provide a portable object document;
providing said portable object document to the selected computer system; and
constructing, within the selected computer system, said object-oriented structure, by instantiating the selected objects from among the classes in said library, and forming inter-relations among the instantiated objects in accordance with said portable object document.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system for providing cross-platform portability of object-oriented structures employs a set of canonical definitions of objects to produce an archive of an object-oriented structure in a standard format. The archive may be provided within object-oriented environments utilizing different operating systems to reproduce the archived structure using native objects specific to the respective operating systems. An archiver is provided for producing portable archives of native object-oriented structures. A de-archiver is provided for constructing native object-oriented structures within an object-oriented environment as specified in a portable archive. The archiver and the de-archiver are adapted to store and to retrieve custom, or operating system-specific, information within canonical object references in the portable archive.
175 Citations
35 Claims
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1. A method of providing an object-oriented structure to a selected computer system having a first operating system, comprising:
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providing a library of classes to the selected compouter system; developing the object-oriented structure, having a plurality of inter-relations among a plurality of selected objects, on a second computer system having a second operating system different from said first operating system; archiving the inter-relations among the selected objects in the object-oriented structure to provide a portable object document; providing said portable object document to the selected computer system; and constructing, within the selected computer system, said object-oriented structure, by instantiating the selected objects from among the classes in said library, and forming inter-relations among the instantiated objects in accordance with said portable object document. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
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20. A system for cross-platform deployment of an object-oriented structure developed in an object-oriented development environment having a first operating system, comprising:
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a library for providing a palette of objects for constructing the object-oriented structure, wherein at least one object therein is defined to invoke a native feature of said first operating system and to invoke a native feature of a second operating system on a conditional basis when said library is compiled within one of said first operating system and said second operating system; the development environment having selecting means for selecting objects from the palette to develop the object oriented structure; and an archiver for producing a platform-independent portable archive of the object-oriented structure within the development environment. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22, 23, 24)
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25. A method of providing cross-platform portability to an object oriented structure, between a first environment having a library of first native object classes and a second environment having a set of second native object classes, the method comprising:
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providing each of said first native object classes with a procedure for transmitting a reference to its attribute in response to receiving a message to archive itself; sending a message to each of the objects within the object oriented structure to archive itself, whereby respective attribute references are transmitted by each object; translating at least one of said transmitted references into a system-independent reference in accordance with a predefined correspondence between said one reference and said system-independent reference; storing said transmitted references and said system-independent reference into a portable archive within said first computer system; providing each of said second native object classes with a procedure for retrieving attributes from an archive, thereby to instantiate an object of said each class; providing the portable archive to the second computer system; and deploying the structure within the second computing system by translating said system-independent reference in the portable archive as a reference to one of said second native object classes, and by invoking said procedure for retrieving attributes thereby to instantiate an object of one of said second native object classes. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27)
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28. A system for porting an object-oriented structure to an object-oriented computing environment having a library of native object classes with selectable attributes, the system comprising:
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an object document containing a structured list of objects constituting the object-oriented structure, said list including entries identifying said objects in a system-independent format and including specified attributes of said objects; a de-archiver for reading the object document, for translating the entries therein from the system-independent format into a native format, and for instantiating the objects identified therein from among the classes in the library by instructing the corresponding native objects to retrieve the specified attributes from the object document. - View Dependent Claims (29)
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30. A method for providing portability for an object oriented structure, comprising a plurality of objects having specified attributes, among a plurality of object oriented computing systems having mutually incompatible operating systems and each having a plurality of native objects, comprising the steps of:
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establishing a canonical definition of each of a plurality of object classes, said definition including a canonical set of attributes for each defined class; providing each environment with de-archiving means for associating said canonical definitions with corresponding ones of said native objects; producing a structured list of the objects and their attributes constituting the object oriented structure in accordance with the respective canonical definitions of the objects and their attributes; storing said list of objects and their attributes in a portable document; and distributing said portable document among said object oriented computing systems. - View Dependent Claims (31, 32, 33)
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34. A method of deploying an object-oriented structure from a first computing system having a first operating system, to a second computing system having a second operating system, comprising the steps of:
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assigning attributes to objects in the object-oriented structure within an object-oriented development environment of the first computer system; providing a master document within the first computer system, the master document containing instructions for obtaining attributes of objects in the object oriented structure; archiving the object-oriented structure by identifying objects in the object-oriented structure, employing the master document to obtain the attributes of the identified objects, and storing the obtained attributes in a portable object document; providing the portable object document to the second computing system; and de-archiving the object-oriented structure in the second computing system by assigning attributes to objects within the second computing system on the basis of attributes specified in the portable object document. - View Dependent Claims (35)
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Specification