System and method for managing hierarchical objects

• US 6,836,776 B2
• Filed: 05/08/2003
• Issued: 12/28/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Schreiber, Robert Walter
• Primary Examiner(s): Rones, Charles
• Assistant Examiner(s): Veillard, Jacques
• Application Number:
  US10/431,361
• Publication Number:
  US 20030195902A1
• Time in Patent Office: 600 Days
• Field of Search: 707/102, 707/200, 707/100, 707/10, 707/3, 707/7, 707/2, 707/9, 707/101, 707/103.R, 707/104.1, 709/200, 709/206, 709/213, 709/217, 709/218, 709/230
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/30 of unstructured textual data document management systems G06F16/93
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A system and method for storing hierarchical objects. The system stores a list of hierarchies as a single object. The object includes all information relating to a particular data element. The data element may be a concept. The concept may include all related information such that if one or more portions of the data element are requested by a user, the entire data object including the requested portions is retrieved. A user may navigate forward and backward through the hierarchy and search for other information. The object is stored as a self-defining object such that all information relating to the data element is stored within the object.

Claims

1. A system for managing data objects in a database, comprising:

a database for storing the data objects, wherein the data objects are organized into a hierarchy including one or more hierarchical data lists that comprise one or more hierarchical data containers and one or more hierarchical data elements, wherein the one or more hierarchical data elements store a data value element of a specified syntax;

a communications module that communicates with at least one client;

a command receiving module that receives at least one command from the at least one client;

an execution module that executes at least one execution command on selected ones of the one or more hierarchical data lists, the one or more hierarchical data containers, and the one or more hierarchical data elements;

a response creating module that creates at least one response to the at least one execution command; and

a response transmitting module that transmits the at least one response to the at least one client.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one response comprises the selected ones of the one or more hierarchical data lists, the one or more hierarchical data containers, and the one or more hierarchical data elements.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more hierarchical data containers comprise a list of pointers to one or more hierarchical data elements.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the execution module comprises a replicating module that replicates the selected ones of the one or more hierarchical data lists, the one or more hierarchical data containers, and the one or more hierarchical data elements in response to the execution command received at the command receiving module.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the execution module comprises a purging module that purges the selected ones of the one or more hierarchical data lists, the one or more hierarchical data containers, and the one or more hierarchical data elements from the database after a predetermined amount of time has elapsed without the selected ones of the one or more hierarchical data lists, the one or more hierarchical data containers, and the one or more hierarchical data elements having been modified.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the execution module comprises a global locking module that locks the selected ones of the one or more hierarchical data lists, the one or more hierarchical data containers, and the one or more hierarchical data elements by preventing access to the selected ones of the one or more hierarchical data lists, the one or more hierarchical data containers, and the one or more hierarchical data elements by a particular user in response to the execution command received at the command receiving module.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the one or more hierarchical data elements is a hybrid data object further comprising:

a pointer to one or more of a previous data object, a next data object, and a parent data object; and

a reference to a back end database.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the execution module comprises an index creating module that creates at least one index for the selected ones of the one or more hierarchical data lists, the one or more hierarchical data containers, and the one or more hierarchical data elements based on the at least one execution command.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the execution module includes a referencing module that references an LDAP database from within at least one of the one or more hierarchical data lists.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the execution module includes a referencing module that references a DB2 database from within at least one of the one or more hierarchical data lists.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the execution module includes a referencing module that references an Oracle database from within at least one of the one or more hierarchical data lists.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the one or more hierarchical data lists is associated with an ensemble, at least one of the one or more hierarchical data containers is associated with an ensemble component, and at least one of the one or more hierarchical data elements is associated with a component criteria.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the ensemble is a mens clothing ensemble, and wherein the ensemble component includes one of a shirt, pants, and shoes.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the execution module includes a referencing module and the referencing module enables at least one back-end database to be referenced by at least one of the one or more hierarchical data lists.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more hierarchical data lists are self-defining entities.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the at least one execution command is created by a user.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more hierarchical data lists include at least one recursive hierarchical data list.

18. The system of claim 17 further comprising a search receiving module for receiving a search from the at least one client, wherein the search receiving module enables searching the database for data associated with a particular hierarchical data list using Structured Query Language.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the search receiving module returns to the at least one client the hierarchical data list that matches the Structured Query Language search.

20. The system of claim 17 further comprising a search receiving module for receiving a search from the at least one client, wherein the search receiving module enables searching the database for data associated with a particular hierarchical data list using an extended regular expression.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the search receiving module returns to the at least one client the hierarchical data list that matches the extended regular expression search.

22. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more hierarchical data lists are adapted to store data associated with two or more different concepts.

23. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more hierarchical data elements further include a length element.

24. A system for storing hierarchical objects comprising:

at least one data object, the at least one data object comprising;

a header element that identifies at least one data attribute and a relationship of the at least one data attribute to other data attributes;

a value element that identifies data stored by the at least one data object, wherein the value element comprises an object identifier, a length identifier, and a

syntax identifier, wherein the object identifier identifies the at least one data object, the length identifier identifies the length of the at least one data object, and the syntax identifier identifies a format of the data.

25. A system, comprising:

a database for storing data objects, wherein the data objects are organized into one or more hierarchical data lists and one or more hierarchical data containers;

a command receiving module that receives a command submitted by at least one client;

a hierarchical data container creating module that creates one or more hierarchical data containers in response to a user-created command submitted by the at least one client;

a hierarchical data list creating module that creates one or more hierarchical data lists in response to a user-created command submitted by the at least one client, wherein the one or more hierarchical data lists comprise the one or more hierarchical data containers;

a communications module that communicates with at least one client;

an execution module that includes at least one of a replicating module, a purging module, a global locking module, an index creating module, and a referencing module, wherein the execution module executes at least one execution command on a selected one of the one or more hierarchical data lists and the one or more hierarchical data containers;

a response creating module that creates at least one response to the at least one execution command submitted to the execution module; and

a response transmitting module that transmits the at least one response to the at least one client.

26. The system of claim 25 further comprising a hierarchical data element creating module that creates one or more hierarchical data elements in response to a user-created command submitted by the at least one client.

27. The system of claim 26, wherein the one or more hierarchical data elements are contained in the one or more hierarchical data containers.