Rendering data according to a present schema from an origin response message

• US 6,961,900 B1
• Filed: 08/28/2000
• Issued: 11/01/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 08/28/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sprague, Roger W., Travison, Daniel T.
• Primary Examiner(s): PAULA, CESAR B
• Application Number:
  US09/649,254
• Time in Patent Office: 1,891 Days
• Field of Search: 715/501.1, 715/513, 715/760, 707/100, 345/760
• US Class Current: 715/202
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation

Abstract

An apparatus and methodology are provided for obtaining data from a data source and providing the data to a data consumer, as well as for providing data from a data provider to an interface. The method provides for sending an origin request message to a data provider, receiving an origin response message having a presentation schema and data, and rendering the data to an interface by providing a presentation language representation of the data according to the presentation schema.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of obtaining data from a data source and rendering the data to an interface, comprising:

sending a first request message to a data provider, wherein the first request message includes an origin record identifier and a record count identifier;

receiving a first response message from the data provider, the first response message having a schema component and a data component;

wherein the data component includes at least one data record having at least one data element, wherein the schema component includes a name component, a title component, a width component, an alignment component, a display component, and a type component associated with the at least one data element in the at least one data record, and wherein rendering data from the data component to the interface according to the schema component comprises providing a presentation language representation of the at least one data element of the at least one data record to the interface according to the name component, title component, width component, alignment component, display component, and type component associated therewith, wherein the display component has a binary display value and the type component has a binary type value, and wherein providing a presentation language representation of the at least one data element of the at least one data record to the interface according to the name component, title component, width component, alignment component, display component, and type component associated therewith comprises;

displaying the at least one data element of the at least one data record via the interface if the display value is one;

hiding the at least one data element of the at least one data record if the display value is zero;

displaying the at least one data element of the at least one data record as an image via the interface if the display value is one and the type value is one; and

displaying the at least one data element of the at least one data record as HTML via the interface if the display value is one and the type value is zero; and

rendering data from the data component to the interface according to the schema component.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the data component includes at least one data record having at least one data element, wherein the schema component includes a name component, a title component, a width component, an alignment component, a display component, and a type component associated with the at least one data element in the at least one data record, and wherein rendering data from the data component to the interface according to the schema component comprises providing a presentation language representation of the at least one data element of the at least one data record to the interface according to the name component, title component, width component, alignment component, display component, and type component associated therewith.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the record count identifier comprises an integer representing a number of records desired from the data source;

wherein the data component comprises an integer number of data records having at least one data element, the integer number being equal to the record count identifier;

wherein the schema component includes a name component, a title component, a width component, an alignment component, a display component, and a type component associated with the at least one data element in the integer number of data records; and

wherein rendering data from the data component to the interface according to the schema component comprises providing a presentation language representation of the at least one data element of the integer number of data records to the interface according to the name component, title component, width component, alignment component, display component, and type component associated therewith.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the presentation language representation is one of HTML, DHTML, postscript, java script, visual basic script, java, and visual C++.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the presentation language representation is one of HTML, DHTML, postscript, java script, visual basic script, java, and visual C++.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending a subsequent request message to the data provider, the subsequent request message having a record identifier, a record count identifier, and a direction identifier;

receiving a subsequent response message from the data provider, the subsequent response message having a data component; and

rendering data from the data component of the subsequent response message to the interface according to the schema component of the first response message.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending a subsequent request message to the data provider, the subsequent request message having a record identifier and a record count identifier;

receiving a subsequent response message from the data provider, the subsequent response message having a data component; and

rendering data from the data component of the subsequent response message to the interface according to the schema component of the first response message.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the subsequent request message further includes a direction identifier.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the data component of the subsequent response message includes at least one data record having at least one data element, wherein the schema component of the first response message includes a name component, a title component, a width component, an alignment component, a display component, and a type component associated with the at least one data element in the at least one data record, and wherein rendering data from the data component of the subsequent response message to the interface according to the schema component of the first response message comprises displaying the at least one data element of the at least one data record via the interface according to the name component, title component, width component, alignment component, display component, and type component associated therewith.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the data component of the subsequent response message is empty and wherein the subsequent response message further comprises an error component including error information, further comprising creating an error event according to the error component.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein creating an error event according to the error component comprises rendering a presentation language representation of at least a portion of the error information from the error component to the interface.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the presentation language representation of the at least a portion of the error information is one of HTML, DHTML, postscript, java script, visual basic script, java, and visual C++.

13. The method of claim 6, wherein the data component of the subsequent response message is empty and wherein the subsequent response message further comprises an error component including error information, further comprising creating an error event according to the error component.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein creating an error event according to the error component comprises rendering a presentation language representation of at least a portion of the error information from the error component to the interface.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the presentation language representation of the at least a portion of the error information is one of HTML, DHTML, postscript, java script, visual basic script, java, and visual C++.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the data component is empty and wherein rendering data from the data component to the interface according to the schema component comprises rendering one of an end of form indicia and a beginning of form indicia to the interface.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising constructing the first request message according to a user action in the interface.