Database interface for database unaware applications

• US 6,442,548 B1
• Filed: 06/25/1999
• Issued: 08/27/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Skier, John A., Kandasamy, Ramiah, Balabine, Igor V.
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam, Hosain T.
• Application Number:
  US09/344,500
• Time in Patent Office: 1,159 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1-4, 707/100-102, 707/103, 707/10, 707/200-201, 707/205, 709/203, 709/217-219
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/10 File systems; File servers
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

Information in a database is accessed with a computer system by transforming a file system request from an application into a database query and retrieving information corresponding to the database query from the database. The retrieved information is made available to the application as a file system object, for example, as a directory, a file, a link or a collection thereof.

Claims

1. A method, performed on a computer system, of accessing information in a database, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving from a web-based database-unaware application a request for information stored in a database;

determining whether the request for information points to a tile namespace that is mutually exclusive with namespaces of file systems in the computer system other than the database;

translating the request from the web-based database-unaware application into a database operation without executing a common gateway interface (CGI) script; and

retrieving information from the database by executing the database operation.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing the retrieved information to the web-based database unaware application.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein retrieving information comprises performing the database operation on the database using a database engine.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the web-based database unaware application comprises a web browser.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the request from the web-based database unaware application is based on a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising presenting the retrieved information to the database-unaware web-based application in a form understandable by the database-unaware web-based application.

7. A computer-based data repository management system comprising:

a web-based database-unaware application program for accessing data; and

an interface to a database for determining whether the request for information points to a file namespace that is mutually exclusive with namespaces of file systems in the computer system other than the database and that provides the database-unaware web-based application access to information in the database by translating requests for information from the web-based database-unaware application into database operations from the parsed requests without executing a common gateway interface (CGI) script.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the database-unaware web-based application comprises a web browser.

9. The system of claim 7 further comprising a database management system for managing information in the database.

10. The system of claim 7 further comprising a database engine for performing database operations on the database, the interface receiving requests from the database-unaware web-based application and transforming the received requests into a form understandable by the database engine.

11. The data repository management system of claim 7, wherein the database interface is further configured to present the retrieved information to the database-unaware web-based application in a form understandable by the database-unaware web-based application.

12. Computer software, residing on a computer readable medium, for a data repository management system comprising a database-unaware web-based application and a database, the computer program comprising instructions to cause a computer system to perform the following operations:

receive a request issued by the web-based database-unaware application for information stored in a database;

determine whether the request for information points to a file namespace that is mutually exclusive with namespaces of file systems in the computer system other than the database convert the received request into a database operation without executing a common gateway inter face (CGI) script; and

retrieve information from the database by executing the database operation.

13. The computer software of claim 12, further comprising instructions to cause a computer system to present the retrieved information to the database-unaware web-based application in a form understandable by the database-unaware web-based application.

14. A method, performed on a computer system, of writing information to a database, the method comprising:

receiving, from a web-based database-unaware application, data to be written to a database;

determining whether the request for information points to a file namespace that is mutually exclusive with namespaces of file systems in the computer system other than the database;

translating the data from the web-based database-unaware application into a database operation; and

writing the data to the database by executing the database operation.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the web-based database unaware application comprises a web browser.

16. A computer-based data repository management system comprising:

a database-unaware web-based application program; and

an interface to a database for determining whether the request for information points to a file namespace that is mutually exclusive with namespaces of file systems in the computer system other than the database and that allows the database-unaware webbased application to write data to the database by parsing the data from the database-unaware web-based application, generating a database operation from the parsed data, and writing data to the database by executing the database operation.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the database-unaware web-based application comprises a web browser.

18. The system of claim 16 further comprising a database management system for managing information in the database.

19. A computer program product, implemented on a computer readable medium, comprising instructions operable to cause a programmable processor to:

receive a request from a database-unaware web-based application for writing data to a database;

determining whether the request for writing data points to a file namespace that is mutually exclusive with namespaces of file systems in the computer system other than the database;

convert the data from the web-based database-unaware application to a format understandable by the database;

generate a database operation form the data; and

write the data to the database by executing the database operation.