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

• US 5,689,703 A
• Filed: 06/06/1995
• Issued: 11/18/1997
• 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): Black, Thomas G.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Lintz, Paul R.
• Application Number:
  US08/467,065
• Time in Patent Office: 896 Days
• Field of Search: 395/600, 395/700, 395/650, 395/614, 395/702, 395/703
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 determining a relative path from a first identifier object to a second identifier object, the first identifier object having naming information that references first source data and having a class identifier that identifies code, having a relative path function member that, when executed, determines the relative path from the first identifier object to a requested identifier object, the second identifier object having naming information that references second source data, the method comprising the steps of:

invoking the relative path function member of the first identifier object with an indicator to the naming information of the second identifier object; and

under control of the relative path function member, returning an indicator to an identifier object wherein the returned identifier object when composed with the first identifier object yields a reference to an identifier object that is equal to the second identifier object.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of returning an indicator further comprises the steps of:

determining a longest common prefix between the naming information of the first identifier object and the naming information of the second identifier object;

removing the determined prefix from an indicator of the naming information of the first identifier object to form a remainder of the naming information of the first identifier object;

determining an inverse of the remainder of the naming information of the first identifier object; and

creating an identifier object whose naming information is a composition of the determined inverse with the second identifier object.

3. The method of claim 2, the code identified by the class identifier of the first identifier object having a prefix determination function member that, when executed, determines a common prefix between the naming information of the first identifier object and a requested location, and wherein the step of determining the longest common prefix is accomplished by invoking the prefix determination function member with an indicator to the second identifier object.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein the step of removing the determined prefix to form the remainder of the naming information of the first identifier object creates a third identifier object, the created third identifier object having naming information that indicates the remainder of the naming information of the first identifier object and a class identifier that identifies inverse generation code that, when executed, generates the inverse of the third identifier object, and wherein the step of determining the inverse of the remainder of the naming information of the first identifier object is performed by invoking the inverse generation code of the third identifier object.