Method and apparatus for determining communication paths

• US 6,618,750 B1
• Filed: 11/02/1999
• Issued: 09/09/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 11/02/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Computer Incorporated (Apple Inc.)
• Inventors: Staats, Erik P.
• Primary Examiner(s): Coulter, Kenneth R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, CHAU T
• Application Number:
  US09/432,915
• Time in Patent Office: 1,407 Days
• Field of Search: 709/321, 709/227, 709/221, 709/228, 709/209, 709/231, 709/220, 709/242, 725/16, 711/147, 370/349
• US Class Current: 709/209
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2805 Home Audio Video Interoperability [HAVI] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2832 Interconnection of the control functionalities between home networks single bridge functionality H04L12/4625
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/02 Topology update or discovery
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/34 Source routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/36 Backward learning

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a system for determining communication paths, especially for AV/C devices. The system includes gathering pertinent information about drivers in each available communication between nodes in the system and ordering the driver information in a communication path list string. The system may be employed with multiple nodes having one or more communication paths between nodes. The system may also be employed with multiple nodes where at least one of the nodes is a bridge.

Claims

1. In a system having a local node and a target node connected to a plurality of nodes located between said local node and said target node, such that multiple communication paths exist between the nodes of said plurality, a method of constructing a communication path string, the method comprising:

an application on a local node requesting communication path data;

in response to said request for communication path data, gathering driver information on a local node and adding said local node driver information to a message list;

recursively gathering driver information for nodes connected between said local node and said target node and sequentially adding said recursively gathered driver information to said message list until no more drivers remain to be added to said message stack list;

reversing the order of driver information contained in said message stack list;

recursively gathering upstream device driver information for each node connected between said target node and said local node, and adding said gathered upstream device information to an upstream stack driver list until no more drivers remain to be added to said upstream stack driver list;

appending said upstream stack list to said reversed order message stack list;

sending said reversed order message stack list and appended upstream stack list to local node; and

appending said reversed order message stack list and appended upstream stack list to a local driver list.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said reversed order message stack list and appended upstream stack list appended to said local driver list are presented in human-readable form to allow a user to choose a communication path.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein for distributed drivers, the device name stack service starts by performing activities with capabilities of regular local drivers to produce a list of names of drivers down to a lowest driver used for transmitting messages to a remote node.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the device stack service sends a message to a remote node requesting its device name stack service.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the remote device name stack service calls a device name stack service for its messaging stack and reverses the order of the list of driver names such that a lowest layer driver name is first and a highest layer driver name is last.