Method and system for persisting beans as container-managed fields

• US 6,269,373 B1
• Filed: 02/26/1999
• Issued: 07/31/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 02/26/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Apte, Ajay Arvind, Acker, Liane Elizabeth
• Primary Examiner(s): Choules, Jack
• Assistant Examiner(s): RAYYAN, SUSAN F
• Application Number:
  US09/259,172
• Time in Patent Office: 886 Days
• Field of Search: 703/26-27, 707/10, 709/311, 709/315-316, 709/326
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/465 Distributed object oriented systems remote method invocation [RMI] G06F9/548

Abstract

A method for persisting a container-managed server object or bean in a distributed data processing system is provided. A method in a Tie object is invoked by the container of the bean to assist in the persistence of the bean. The bean may have container-managed fields of both primitive and complex data-types, and the complex data-types may include references to other objects or beans. The Tie object obtains the object reference to the other object. The Tie object unwraps an adapter from the object reference to obtain a proxy of the referred object and stringifies the proxy. The string is then stored by the container in a back-end data store as a known primitive data-type. The referred object may be resurrected by unstringifying the string and reversing the process.

Claims

1. A method for persisting a bean as a container- the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

managed field in a distributed data processing system, invoking a method of a Tie object;

obtaining an object reference comprising an adapter;

unwrapping the adapter to obtain a proxy;

stringifying the proxy; and

storing the string.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the object reference is stored in a container-managed field of the bean.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the adapter is a Java class that implements an interface supported by an object referenced by the object reference.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the proxy is a Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) proxy.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the bean is an Enterprise JavaBean.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the bean is a container-managed entity bean.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the method of the Tie object is invoked by the container.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the container stores the string in a persistent store.

9. A data processing system for persisting a bean as a container-managed field, the data processing system comprising:

means for invoking a method of a Tie object;

means for obtaining an object reference comprising an adapter;

means for unwrapping the adapter to obtain a proxy;

means for stringifying the proxy; and

means for storing the string.

10. The data processing system of claim 9 wherein the object reference is stored in a container-managed field of the bean.

11. The data processing system of claim 9 wherein the adapter is a Java class that implements an interface supported by an object referenced by the object reference.

12. The data processing system of claim 9 wherein the proxy is a Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) proxy.

13. The data processing system of claim 9 wherein the bean is an Enterprise JavaBean.

14. The data processing system of claim 9 wherein the bean is a container-managed entity bean.

15. The data processing system of claim 9 wherein the method of the Tie object is invoked by the container.

16. The data processing system of claim 9 wherein the container stores the string in a persistent store.

17. A computer program product in a computer readable medium for use with a data processing system for persisting a bean as a container-managed field in a distributed data processing system, the computer program product comprising:

first instructions for invoking a method of a Tie object;

second instructions for obtaining an object reference comprising an adapter;

third instructions for unwrapping the adapter to obtain a proxy;

fourth instructions for stringifying the proxy; and

fifth instructions for storing the string.