Method and system for communicating information among interactive applications
First Claim
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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.
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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.
82 Citations
29 Claims
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1. A method of sharing data elements between multiple applications within a computer system, comprising the steps of:
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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. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
F) changing the data within a data element;
G) announcing the data change across the InfoBus to all registered applications.
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6. The method according to claim 1 wherein step C further comprises specifying the data name by way of a property.
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7. The method according to claim 1 wherein step C further comprises specifying the data name by way of a parameter.
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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.
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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.
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10. The method according to claim 1 further comprising the step of preventing a registered application from changing a data element without permission.
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11. In an object-oriented computer system having multiple participants, a communications bus for sharing data between the multiple participants comprising:
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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. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
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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:
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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. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
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.
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25. The computer program product according to claim 20 further comprising program code to specify the data name using a property.
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26. The computer program product according to claim 20 wherein the data name is specified using a data parameter.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Specification