Hierarchical view of data binding between display elements that are organized in a hierarchical structure to a data store that is also organized in a hierarchical structure

• US 6,571,253 B1
• Filed: 04/28/2000
• Issued: 05/27/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Thompson, Richard D., Matchen, Paul M., Boies, Stephen J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Corrielus, Jean M.
• Application Number:
  US09/560,587
• Time in Patent Office: 1,124 Days
• Field of Search: 707/500, 707/10, 707/103, 707/100, 707/1, 709/331, 709/310, 709/332, 345/762, 345/764
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure

Abstract

A Web browser is used as the rendering engine for the client application. The browser is instructed to load a “page” (some set of instructions that eventually resolves to a sequence of HTML (HyperText Markup Language) tags which instruct the browser regarding the number/nature and layout of the controls desired) which the browser parses to produce a set of controls with the indicated containment hierarchy. These controls may contain definitions of data stores (such as the support for an XML (eXtended Markup Language) tag which produces a W3C compliant DOM (Docunent Object Model) with built-in parsing for XML documents) which may either locally define their data or cause the browser to request the data from a server on the network. Preferably, the browser then passes control to a data binding agent which will examine the controls for specification of desired data binding(s).

Claims

1. A system providing a hierarchical view of data binding between display elements to a data store comprising:

a source of display elements organized in a hierarchical structure;

a data store organized in a hierarchical structure; and

a data binding agent providing support for linking a hierarchy of controls to a hierarchy of data items where the data binding process exploits the hierarchical nature of both the controls and the data store, the links established being bidirectional in that changes to the data item are reflected to the control and changes to the control are reflected to the data item.

2. A system according to claim 1, wherein the controls and their hierarchy are specified in HyperText Markup Language (HTML).

3. A system according to claim 1, wherein the data store is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) compliant Document Object Model (DOM).

4. A system according to claim 1, wherein the specification for locating the data item of interest may specify any level of the hierarchy of data items.

5. A system according to claim 4, wherein the specification syntax is an eXtensible Script Language (XSL) pattern.

6. A system according to claim 4, wherein the specification syntax is an Xpath expression.

7. A system according to claim 1, wherein the specification of the data store for a control'"'"'s data binding may reference an object in another frame or window provided it is accessible to the data binding agent.

8. A system according to claim 1, wherein the property of the control bound to the data item defaults to the property the control renders on the display.

9. A system according to claim 1, wherein the property of a control bound to the data item is specified by the control.

10. A system according to claim 1, wherein the control specifies code to be executed when data events occur including before change, after change, before rebind and after rebind.

11. A method providing a hierarchical view of data binding between display elements to a data store comprising the steps of:

organizing a source of display elements in a hierarchical structure;

organizing a data store in a hierarchical structure; and

providing support for linking a hierarchy of controls to a hierarchy of data items with a data binding agent where the data binding process exploits the hierarchical nature of both the controls and the data store, the links established being bidirectional in that changes to the data item are reflected to the control and changes to the control are reflected to the data item.

12. A method according to claim 11, wherein the controls and their hierarchy are specified in HyperText Markup Language (HTML).

13. A method according to claim 11, wherein the data store is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) compliant Document Object Model (DOM).

14. A method according to claim 11, wherein the specification for locating the data item of interest may specify any level of the hierarchy of data items.

15. A method according to claim 14, wherein the specification syntax is an eXtensible Script Language (XSL) pattern.

16. A method according to claim 14, wherein the specification syntax is an Xpath expression.

17. A method according to claim 11, wherein the specification of the data store for a control'"'"'s data binding may reference an object in another frame or window provided it is accessible to the data binding agent.

18. A method according to claim 11, wherein the property of the control bound to the data item defaults to the property the control renders on the display.

19. A method according to claim 11, wherein the property of a control bound to the data item is specified by the control.

20. A method according to claim 11, wherein the control specifies code to be executed when data events occur including before change, after change, before rebind and after rebind.