Method and system for communicating information among interactive applications

• US 6,704,804 B1
• Filed: 12/29/1998
• Issued: 03/09/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 01/26/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Wilson, Douglass J., Colan, Mark T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Follansbee, John
• Assistant Examiner(s): HO, ANDY
• Application Number:
  US09/222,489
• Time in Patent Office: 1,897 Days
• Field of Search: 709/100, 709/101, 709/103, 709/200, 709/223, 709/229, 709/232, 709/315, 709/316, 707/205
• US Class Current: 719/315
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/465 Distributed object oriented systems remote method invocation [RMI] G06F9/548
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/544 Buffers; Shared memory; Pipes

Abstract

A group of protocols is described that establishes an information bus. The protocols allow various applications and components to plug into the information bus. As a member of the bus, each application or component can exchange information with any other application or component in a structured manner. The information bus is especially useful in interconnecting Java beans and applets in a Java virtual machine and in a distributive computer environment.

Claims

1. A method of sharing data elements between multiple applications within a computer system, comprising the steps of:

A) establishing multiple instances of a virtual information bus (InfoBus), each of the virtual information bus instances having at least one data controller associated therewith to enable interaction between member applications of the virtual information bus instance;

B) registering selected of the applications with one of the InfoBus instances;

C) providing a data name to each data element to be shared;

D) announcing over the instance of the InfoBus, to the registered applications, the availability of each named data element; and

E) transmitting a request over the instance of the InfoBus to the at least one data controller associated therewith, the request including a data name, from one of the registered applications, to access the data element associated with the data name.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein each data element is associated with at least one of the applications.

3. The method according to claim 1 wherein each new data element is provided a specific data name as per step C.

4. The method according to claim 1 wherein each application defines how each data name shall be selected.

5. The method according to claim 1 further comprising the steps of:

F) changing the data within a data element;

G) announcing the data change across the InfoBus to all registered applications.

6. The method according to claim 1 wherein step C further comprises specifying the data name by way of a property.

7. The method according to claim 1 wherein step C further comprises specifying the data name by way of a parameter.

8. The method according to claim 1 further comprising the step of adding each registered application to a list of members to notify of new or changed data elements.

9. The method according to claim 8 further comprising the step of removing a member from the list of members upon notice of a member withdrawal.

10. The method according to claim 1 further comprising the step of preventing a registered application from changing a data element without permission.

11. In an object-oriented computer system having multiple participants, a communications bus for sharing data between the multiple participants comprising:

membership generator logic configured to grant each requesting participant membership to one of a plurality of instances of a virtual communications bus;

data element builder logic configured to generate data elements within the participant member, the data elements comprising persistent data from the participant member;

data notification logic, responsive to the data element builder logic, configured to notify via one of the virtual communications bus instances all participant members of the data element of each persistent data handled by the data element builder logic; and

data access logic configured to retrieve a data element in response to a data request by a participant member.

12. The communications bus of claim 11 wherein each data element is associated with at least one of the applications.

13. The communications bus according to claim 11 wherein each data element is provided a specific data name.

14. The communications bus according to claim 13 wherein each participant defines how each data name shall be selected.

15. The communications bus according to claim 11 wherein the data notification logic is configured to provide announcements across the communications bus to at least some of the participant members of data changes to any data element.

16. The communications bus according to claim 14 wherein the participant utilizes a property parameter to determine the data name.

17. The communications bus according to claim 14 wherein the participant utilizes a data parameter to specify the data name.

18. The communications bus according to claim 11 wherein the data notification logic generates a list of registered applications, each registered application being a participant member.

19. The communications bus according to claim 18 wherein the data notification logic utilizes the list of registered applications to select which applications are to receive notice of changes or new additions of data elements.

20. A computer program product for use with a computer system to provide data sharing among participating applications, the computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having computer readable program code embodied on the medium for enabling data to be accessed across the computer system, the medium further comprising:

program code to establish multiple instance of a virtual communications bus over the computer system, each of the virtual communications bus instances having at least one data controller associated therewith to enable interaction between member applications of the virtual communications bus instance;

program code to register selected of the applications with one of the instances of the virtual communications bus;

program code to provide a data name to each data element to be shared;

program code to announce, via one of the instances of the virtual communications bus, to the registered applications the availability of each named data element; and

program code to transmit a request over the instance of the virtual communications bus to the at least one data controller associated therewith, the request including a data name from one of the registered applications to access the data element associated with the data name.

21. The computer program product according to claim 20 wherein each data element is associated with at least one of the applications.

22. The computer program product according to claim 20 wherein each new data element is provided a specific data name.

23. The computer program product according to claim 22 wherein each application defines how each data name associated with the application shall be selected.

24. The computer program product of claim 20 further comprising:

program code to change the data within a data element;

program code to announce the data change across the communications bus to all registered applications.

25. The computer program product according to claim 20 further comprising program code to specify the data name using a property.

26. The computer program product according to claim 20 wherein the data name is specified using a data parameter.

27. The computer program product according to claim 20 further comprising program code to add each registered application to a list of members for reference to notifying of new or changed data elements.

28. The computer program product according to claim 26 further comprising program code to remove a member from the list of members upon notice of a member withdrawal.

29. The computer program product according to claim 20 further comprising program code to prevent a registered application from changing a data element without permission.