System and method providing diffgram format

• US 7,035,866 B1
• Filed: 10/09/2001
• Issued: 04/25/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 10/09/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Gazitt, Omri, Pizzo, Michael J., Bolognese, Luca, Chen, Chia-Hsun, Lombardi, Vincenzo, Zhu, Jason Zhengnan
• Primary Examiner(s): Shah, Sanjiv
• Application Number:
  US09/973,242
• Time in Patent Office: 1,659 Days
• Field of Search: 715/513, 715/500.1, 715/521, 715/523, 707/5, 707/201, 707/203, 707/7, 707/8, 707/102
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/80 of semi-structured data, e.g. markup language structured data such as SGML, XML or HTML content-based retrieval of web data G06F16/95
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/149 Adaptation of the text data for streaming purposes, e.g. Efficient XML Interchange [EXI] format
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/194 Calculation of difference between files
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system and methodology to facilitate XML data communications and processing. A diffgram data structure is provided that includes one or more states of a plurality of data records. The state information can be determined by examining one or more data sources for differences from one or more reference data sources. If differences are detected between the data sources, the diffgram can be constructed in an XML compatible format with both previous state indications and current state indications that describes the state differences between the data sources. Error information and/or other administrative information or codes can also be provided to facilitate database management and/or processing.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented system for differentiating at least two XML data sources, comprising:

a difference component within a computer that determines differences between the XML data sources; and

a formatter associated with the difference component that describes and outputs the differences together with a representation of at least one of the XML data sources.

2. The system of claim 1, the difference component being a diff engine that determines the differences based upon one or more input options.

3. The system of claim 2, the options include at least one of:

none, ignore empty element, ignore white space, ignore comments, ignore attribute order, ignore namespace, ignore prefix, and ignore DTD.

4. The system of claim 2, the diff engine adapted to receive a plurality of methods and associated parameters relating to the XML data sources and return one or more difference results.

5. The system of claim 4, the one or more difference results including at least one of:

a node field, a lexical-equal field, a diff field, and one or more file fields.

6. The system of claim 4, the one or more results further comprising at least one of:

element value not matched, white spaces not matched, comment node not matched, processing instructions not matched, text node not matched, attribute name or value not matched, namespaces not matched, prefix not matched, extra nodes in source file, extra nodes in target file, and node type not matched.

7. The system of claim 4, the formatter adapted to generate a container that includes the results of the diff engine.

8. The system of claim 7, the container including a nested diffgram that includes difference information between one or more files, the files describe differences between the XML data sources.

9. The system of claim 7, the container including S states, S being an integer, the states representing comparisons between a reference file and one or more other files.

10. The system of claim 7, the container including S states, S being an integer, the states representing comparisons between a plurality of reference files and one or more other files.

11. The system of claim 7, the container including beginning and ending tags to define the boundaries of the container.

12. The system of claim 7, the container including an instance data field and a before data field to describe the differences between the XML data sources.

13. The system of claim 7, the container including at least one of an ID field, a changes field, and an error field.

14. The system of claim 1, the formatter outputs a data packet that comprises:

a first data field representing a previous state of XML data; and

a second data field representing a current state of the XML data.

15. The system of claim 14, the data packet transmitted to at least one of:

a local network system, a remote network system, a local database, and a remote database.

16. A computer-implemented method to facilitate XML data processing, comprising:

comparing two or more source files to determine if differences exist between the source files;

filling a container with previous state results and current state results based at least in part upon the comparison; and

determining whether corrective procedures should be taken with respect to data within a database as a function of the comparison.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising providing options that include ignoring one or more elements during the comparison.

18. The method of claim 16, returning one or more difference results relating to the differences between the two or more source files.

19. The method of claim 16, further comprising nesting diffgrams via a comparison of two or more records that describe differences between XML data sources.

20. The method of claim 16, further comprising generating S states, S being an integer, the states representing comparisons between the two or more source files.

21. The method of claim 16, further comprising generating S states, S being an integer, the states representing comparisons between a plurality of source files.

22. A computer-implemented system to facilitate communication of a data source, comprising:

a transmission system within a computer that determines a previous and a current state of a data source; and

a container configured and output by the transmission system having tags to define boundaries for the data sources, the container including an indication of the previous and the current states of the data sources within the defined boundaries.

23. The system of claim 22, further comprising a receiving system to process contents of the container.

24. A computer readable medium having stored thereon a data structure to represent XML data, comprising:

a container field that delineates boundaries of an XML data source;

a previous state field associated with the container field comprising data representing a prior status of the XML data source; and

a current state field associated with the container field comprising data representing one or more changes to the XML data source.

25. A computer-implemented system to facilitate XML data communications, comprising:

means for determining differences between two or more XML source files; and

means for representing previous states and current states corresponding to the differences between the two or more XML source files.

26. A computer-implemented system to communicate XML data between nodes, comprising:

a first node operatively coupled to a database resident within one or more computers, the database having one or more data records; and

a buffer associated with the first node that reads the database and compares a reference data source to determine differences among the one or more data records, the first node constructs one or more diffgrams that describe the differences between the reference data source and the one or more data records, the diffgram further includes a representation of at least one of the data records.

27. The system of claim 26, the one or more diffgrams employed to at least one of correct erroneous entries and update data records that have changed over time by enabling the database to update data identified by state information included in the diffgram.

28. The system of claim 26, the one or more diffgrams employed to reconstruct a faulted database.

29. The system of claim 26, the one or more diffgrams employed to synchronize the reference data source to one or more other databases.

30. A computer-implemented system to communicate XML orders between nodes, comprising:

an ordering subsystem resident upon a computer to generate orders to one or more databases, the one or more databases having one or more inventory records; and

a component associated with the one or more databases that compares the one or more inventory records to determine differences among the orders, the component constructs one or more diffgrams that describe the differences between the one or more inventory records and the order to indicate status of the inventory.

31. An XML compatible diffgram resident upon a computer that stores states of an XML data source, comprising:

a container to describe boundaries of the diffgram;

a first component that indicates a prior state of the XML data source; and

a second component that represents one or more state changes to the XML data source.