Protocol agnostic request response pattern

• US 6,996,833 B1
• Filed: 03/27/2001
• Issued: 02/07/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/27/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Nielsen, Henrik Frystyk, Olson, Lance E., Sanders, Henry L., Firth, Richard L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Van H.
• Application Number:
  US09/818,447
• Time in Patent Office: 1,778 Days
• Field of Search: 709/230, 709/223, 709/202, 709/218, 709/217, 709/332, 709/200, 709/203, 713/168, 370/490, 719/310, 719/315, 719/316, 719/331
• US Class Current: 719/332
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/541 via adapters, e.g. between incompatible applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/03 Protocol definition or specification protocol conformance testing H04L1/244
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A system and method for facilitating communications over a protocol is provided. The system includes a class factory that holds identifiers associated with determining which, if any, registered protocol object creator should be employed to create a protocol object. The protocol object implements an abstract network protocol base class. The protocol object is employed to abstract details of communicating over a protocol and to provide a byte stream interface to communications occurring over the protocol, while removing protocol specific code from an application program. The method includes creating an instance of a protocol object from a source of registered protocol handlers based on a request to communicate over a protocol and using a base class API to communicate over the protocol through the protocol object.

Claims

1. A computer system for communicating over a protocol, comprising:

a class factory that selects a protocol object creator that produces an object associated with a protocol for communicating over a network comprising;

a plurality of identifiers; and

at least one registered protocol object creator associated with at least one of the plurality of identifiers, the at least one registered protocol object creator creates at least one protocol object;

the at least one protocol object comprising;

a reading component adapted to read a first data from a resource, the first data having at least one of, a format specific to the protocol and one or more headers and/or footers specific to the protocol when it is read from the resource; and

a writing component adapted to write a second data to the resource, the second data having at least one of, a format specific to the protocol and one or more headers and/or footers specific to the protocol when it is written to the resource.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the resource is at least one of, a service, an application and a content source, the resource being accessible over a network.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the protocol is at least one of a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and a Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP).

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of identifiers comprise one or more Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs).

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of identifiers comprise one or more prefixes associated with one or more URIs.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one protocol object creator instantiates the at least one protocol object, and wherein the protocol object creator is software in execution.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the at least one protocol object creator registers one or more implemented creating methods with the class factory, the creating methods being defined in an abstract base class and implemented by the at least one protocol object.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the at least one or more protocol object inherits from one or more abstract base classes.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one protocol object is adapted to read the first data from the resource.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the at least one protocol object makes the data read from the resource available as a byte stream.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the at least one protocol object removes at least one of a format specific to the protocol and one or more headers and/or footers specific to the protocol from the first data.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the at least one protocol object is adapted to write the second data to the resource.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the at least one protocol object accepts a byte stream to write as the second data to the resource.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the at least one protocol object adds at least one of a format specific to the protocol and one or more headers and/or footers specific to the protocol to the second data.

15. The system of claim 1 comprising:

an adding component adapted to add one or more identifiers to a list of registered identifiers and further adapted to add one or more protocol object creating methods to a list of registered protocol object creating methods.

16. A computer system for communicating over a protocol, comprising:

a class factory that selects a protocol object creator that produces an object associated with a protocol comprising;

a plurality of identifiers, where the identifiers are URIs; and

at least one registered protocol object creator, the at least one registered protocol object creator adapted to create at least one protocol object;

the at least one protocol object comprising;

a reader adapted to read a first data from a resource, where the first data has formatting specific to the protocol when the first data is read from the resource, where the protocol is at least one of a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and a Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTQ), where the resource is at least one of a service, an application and a content source, and where the resource is accessible over a network; and

a writer adapted to write a second data to the resource, where the second data has formatting specific to the protocol when the second data is written to the resource.

17. The system of claim 16, information associated with the identifiers of the resource comprises one or more Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs).

18. The system of claim 16, information associated with the identifiers of the resource comprises one or more prefixes associated with one or more URIs.

19. The system of claim 16, the object generator is associated with one or more constructors, each constructor produces a protocol object specific to a particular protocol.

20. The system of claim 19, the protocol object reads data from a first resource, formats read data as a byte stream, and writes data to a second resource.

21. The system of claim 20, the first and second resources are the same resource.

22. The system of claim 16, the resource is at least one of a service, an application, and a content source, and is available over a network.