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Methods and systems for performing reliable asynchronous notification of high-level document operations

  • US 6,868,418 B1
  • Filed: 10/04/2000
  • Issued: 03/15/2005
  • Est. Priority Date: 10/04/2000
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. In a computing system comprised of an operating system and client applications, and that includes,external to the operating system, i) a database application for generating high-level document commands that relate to operations to be performed on a document such as a folder, a file, a message or other such entities that are identified at the level of client applications that use the system, and ii) a database engine for receiving the high-level commands from the database application and then implementing them by executing object commands passed to an operating system, and internal to the operating system, a separate notification database containing one or more tables each comprised of objects that define various properties of one or more documents, and wherein the objects contained in the database tables are updated in response to the object commands received from the operating system, a method for asynchronously notifying client applications of the, implementation of particular high-level document commands so that such notification survives even failures of either the database engine or client applications, and wherein the method is comprised of performing the following acts:

  • the database application issuing one or more high-level document commands which are to be implemented;

    either i) before implementing an issued high-level document command, or ii) at the same time that any other table of the database is updated, the database engine altering a persistently stored notification table by creating a notification entry to reflect the implementation of the issued high-level document command, with the result that the client applications do not affect the implementation of the high-level document command since the implementation takes place prior to notification of the client applications, even in the event of failure of either database or the client application, because either, for case i), no tables in the database are updated until such failure is restored and notification of implementation is verified by at least one of the client applications to the database engine of the operating system, or for case ii), all tables in the database are updated in the same transaction used to create the notification entry when updating the persistently stored notification table of the database engine of the operating system; and

    dispatching from the operating system a notification of the implementation of the issued high-level document command to one or more client applications requiring such notification;

    receiving acknowledgement from at least one of the one or more client applications that the notification has been received; and

    in response to receiving acknowledgement, the database engine altering the notification table to reflect that no client applications any longer treed to be notified of the implementation of the high-level document command.

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