Object state change and history management mechanism

• US 6,292,803 B1
• Filed: 11/18/1997
• Issued: 09/18/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 11/18/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Honeywell Incorporated (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Inventors: Richardson, James P., Agrawal, Mukul B.
• Primary Examiner(s): AMSBURY, WAYNE P
• Application Number:
  US08/972,403
• Time in Patent Office: 1,400 Days
• Field of Search: 707/2, 707/203
• US Class Current: 707/610
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2393 Updating materialised views
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/252 between a Database Management System and a front-end application
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/955 Object-oriented
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

A system of managing changes in the states of interrelated objects provides for synchronization of change notifications transferred between source and target objects. In one embodiment, target objects subscribe to state changes in source objects and the change notifications are provided with unique temporal state identifiers such as a system time stamp or an assigned number to provide a temporal dimension and allow synchronization of the notifications at the target object. The state changes are actually in the form of methods applied to the source, and equivalent or identical methods are then applied to the target. A log of change notifications is provided, and each of the notifications are applied to the target object to synchronize it with relevant source objects to which it is dependent upon and to a particular selected point in time. The source objects comprise relational database objects, objects as in object-oriented systems and objects representing physical phenomena; and the target objects comprise views of data in the source objects.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a source object comprising data, the source object having a state that can be changed by applying a method to it, and the source object capable of emitting a method applied to it as a change notification;

a target object comprising data, the target object capable of receiving change notification and applying the method associated with each change notification received to the target object;

a view materializer, comprising an input object that is a target object capable of receiving change notification from a source object, and further comprising a view object that is a function of the input object and that emits change notification such that the change notification may be received by one or more target objects;

a notifier that implements the change notification, wherein the notifier communicates changes in data contained in a source object to a target object; and

a quality of service parameter and wherein the notifier communicates changes based on the quality of service parameter.

2. The system of claim 1 comprising more than one source object, wherein the view object provides a view that is a function of the data from multiple source objects.

3. The system of claim 2 and further comprising functions for transforming the data from the multiple source objects in accordance with selected functions.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the notifier comprises one or more methods selected from the group consisting of get_current_state_from_past, get_past_state, get_past_state_from_past, and subscribe_from_past.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the notifier applies selected methods to a target object to bring the target object to a desired state in time.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the desired state in time is identified by a unique temporal identifier.

7. The system of claim 1 and further comprising sensors coupled to the source objects.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more input objects function as target objects, such that the input objects receive change notification from source objects and apply the method associated with the change notification to data comprising the input object, and wherein the view materializer receives notification of the changed data and changes the view object consistent with the function defining the view object as a function of the one or more input objects.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more view objects function as source objects, such that they emit a change notification of changes applied to the one or more view objects to one or more target objects.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more target objects that receive change notification from a view object are further operable to function as source objects.

11. A system having a manager for managing changes in state of interrelated objects, the system comprising:

one or more source objects having a state representative of a physical state of a system;

one or more methods that update the source objects responsive to changes in the state of the system;

one or more change notifiers that communicate the changes;

a view materializer comprising one or more input objects capable of receiving change notification from source objects and further comprising one or more view objects that are a function of the input objects and that emit change notification, such that the change notification may be received by one or more target objects; and

a quality of service parameter and wherein the notifier communicates changes based on the quality of service parameter.

12. The system of claim 11 and further comprising a sensor for measuring a physical event and providing the source object with information representative of the physical event.

13. The system of claim 11 and wherein the change notifier comprises one or more methods selected from the group consisting of get_current_state_from_past, get_past_state, get_past_state_from_past, and subscribe_from_past.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 11 wherein the temporal identifier comprises a time stamp.

15. A system comprising:

a plurality of processor elements;

a network coupling the processor elements to each other;

a plurality of information sources coupled to the processor elements;

a source object having a state representative of information provided by the information sources;

a service running on at least one of the processor elements for applying methods to update the state of the source object responsive to changes in information provided by the information sources;

a view materializer comprising an input objects capable of receiving change notification from the source object and further comprising a view object that is a function of the input object and that emits change notification, such that the change notification may be received by a target object;

a notifier that implements the change notification, wherein the notifier communicates changes in data contained in a source object to a target object; and

a quality of service parameter and wherein the notifier communicates changes based on the quality of service parameter.

16. A state change manager for managing changes in state of interrelated objects comprising:

a source object having a state representative of a physical state of a system;

a method that updates the source object responsive to changes in the state of the system;

a change log that records changes to the source object and associates such changes with a chronologically related identifier;

a change notifier that communicates the changes to a view materializer;

a view materializer comprising an input object that receives change notification from source objects via the change the change notifier and further comprising a view object that is a function of the input object and that emits change notification, such that the change notification may be received by a target object; and

a quality of service parameter and wherein the change notifier communicates changes based on the quality of service parameter.

17. A machine-readable medium with instructions stored thereon, the instructions when executed on a computer operable to cause the computer to:

log changes in state of a source object in a format specifying a method applied to the source object to change its state, and temporal identifier; and

apply logged changes in state based on quality of service parameter to a target object which is a function of at least one source object in response to a request to synchronize the target object with respect to a desired state of the source object.

18. A method of synchronizing the state of a source object and a target object which is a function of at least one source object, comprising:

logging changes in state of a source object in format specifying a method applied to the source object to change its state, and chronological identifier;

requesting to synchronize the state of the target object with the source object at a desired point in time, wherein requesting includes identifying the target object and a desired quality of service; and

using logged methods applied to the source object to change the state of the target object to synchronize the state of the target object with the state of the source object at the desired point in time.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the requesting step comprises identifying the target object and its starting state.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the requesting step comprises identifying the target object, its starting state, and an ending state.

21. The method of claim 18, wherein using logged methods applied to the source object to change the state of the target object comprises applying the logged methods to input objects in a view materializer, such that the view materializer updates a view object which is a selected function of the input object, the view object further capable of emitting change notification of changes applied to the view object to a target object.

22. The system of claim 21 and further comprising multiple view objects wherein at least one view object is a function of multiple source and view objects as communicated by the notifier.

23. A system comprising:

a plurality of source objects containing information;

a first view object which is a function of the information contained in the source object;

a second view object which is a function at least in part of the view object; and

a notifier that communicates changes in the data contained in the source objects to the first view object such that the changes are applied to the first view object, and that communicates changes in the data contained in the first view object to the second view object to bring the second view object to a desired state in time, wherein the notifier notifies changes based on a quality of service parameter.

24. A computer system, comprising:

at least one object having a state; and

another object that includes a state having a functional relationship to the state of the at least one object, wherein the functional relationship is selected from a group consisting of data reduction, data formula translation, and data elimination, and wherein the state of the other object changes to maintain the functional relationship.

25. The system of claim 24, further comprising a collection of functional relationships, wherein at least one functional relationship of the collection of functional relationships defines the functional relationship between the state of the another object to the state of the at least one object.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein the collection of functional relationships is adapted to work for a type selected from a group consisting of sets, relations, sequences, images, and text.

27. The system of claim 24, further comprising at least one materializer that contains the at least one object, the another object, and the functional relationship between the at least one object and the another object, and wherein the at least one materializer maintains the functional relationship in accordance with a predetermined algorithm.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein the at least one materializer includes at least two materializers having different functional relationships, wherein one of the at least two materializers depends on the other of the at least two materializers, and wherein when the other of the at least two materializers receives an actual action that took place to cause a change, the state of the another object of the one of the at least two materializers changes to maintain the functional relationship.

29. A computerized method, comprising:

updating at least one object by a client object;

intercepting each act of updating by at least one materializer; and

restoring a functional relationship between another object and the at least one object, wherein the functional relationship is selected from a group consisting of data reduction, data formula translation, and data elimination, and wherein the act of restoring is executed after the act of intercepting.

30. The method of claim 29, further comprising extracting information from the at least one object by at least one materializer and bringing the another object to a desired state using the information.

31. The method of claim 29, further comprising logging changes to the at least one object by a log instance so as to asynchronously pass the changes to at least one target object, and wherein the log instance persists the changes.

32. The method of claim 29, further comprising specifying a quality of service, wherein the quality of service is selected from a group consisting of timeliness quality of service and accuracy quality of service.

33. The method of claim 29, further comprising skipping at least one desired change, which is logged, wherein skipping includes reducing by algebraic reduction techniques.

34. A data structure, comprising:

a state copier to change an initial state of a target to a current state;

a history that extends the state copier to bring the target from one time to another time;

a notifier that selectively subscribes to change notifications of a source; and

a history notifier that extends the history and the notifier to change the target from a past state to a current state of the source, and wherein the history notifier keeps the target current with the source.

35. The data structure of claim 34, wherein the state copier includes a method member for bringing the target to a current state from an initial state, and wherein the method member receives a mutable target.

36. The data structure of claim 34, wherein the history includes three method members, wherein the first method member of the three method members is an act for bringing the target to a current state of the source from a past state, wherein the second method member of the three method members is an act for bringing the target to the past ststae of the source object from an initial state, and wherein the third method member of the three method members is an act for bringing the target to a later past state of the sourcefrom the past state.

37. The data structure of claim 34, wherein the notifier includes two method members, wherein the first method member of the two method members is an act for subscribing to receive change notifications of the source, wherein the first method member receives a desired quality of service, wherein the second method member of the two method members is an act for unscribing to cancel the receipt of change notifications of the source.

38. The data structure of claim 34, wherein the history notifier includes a method member for subscribing to a current state of the source such that the target is brought from a past state to the current state of the source, and wherein the state of the target is kept current with the source.