Hardware accelerated validating parser

• US 7,080,094 B2
• Filed: 12/31/2002
• Issued: 07/18/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Lockheed Martin Corporation (Martin Marietta Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Lockheed Martin Corporation (Martin Marietta Corporation)
• Inventors: Dapp, Michael C., Ng, Sai Lun, Lett, Eric C.
• Primary Examiner(s): MIZRAHI, DIANE D
• Application Number:
  US10/334,086
• Publication Number:
  US 20040083221A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,295 Days
• Field of Search: 707 1- 10, 707100-1041, 707200-206, 715/513, 715/531, 715/501.1
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/427 Parsing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

A hardware accelerated validation parser is provided to remove a large portion if not all of the processing and overhead burden of validation parsing from a host processor by parallel access to both a state table and a data dictionary based on a token and merging and selective redirection of the respective outputs thereof; a portion of a transition control word (TCW) formed by the merged data being used to advance through the state table and a portion of the TCW being used to control formation of a tree structured data object (TSDO) corresponding to a text document in a language such as XML™ which supports interoperability and platform independence. A stack is provided to accommodate nesting of elements and aggregate elements. The formation of the TSDO can be and preferably is performed asynchronously and autonomously in parallel with the validation parsing.

Claims

1. A validation parser for a tokenized text document in a computer language supporting platform independence and interoperability, said validation parser comprising,

means for retrieving data from both a data dictionary and a state table in accordance with a token,

means for merging said data from said state table and said data dictionary to form a transition control word,

means for merging part of said transition control word with another token to retrieve further data from said state table, and

means for forming a tree structured data object corresponding to said tokenized text document under control of part of said transition control word.

2. The validation parser as recited in claim 1, further including

means for controlling operation of a stack with said transition control word to derive the next transition state in supporting nested data structures defined in a supported language.

3. The validation parser as recited in claim 2, further including

means for forming a data construct from the tokenized text document.

4. The validation parser as recited in claim 3, wherein said means for forming a data construct includes an element and attribute buffer.

5. The validation parser as recited in claim 1, further including

means for forming a data construct from the tokenized text document.

6. The validation parser as recited in claim 5, wherein said means for forming a data construct includes an element and attribute buffer.

7. A computer implemented method of accelerating validation parsing of a tokenized file, said method comprising steps of retrieving data from both a data dictionary and a state table in accordance with a token,

merging said data from said state table and said data dictionary to form a transition control word, and

merging part of said transition control word with another token to retrieve further data from said state table.

8. The method as recited in claim 7, including a further step of operating a stack with said transition control word to derive the next transition state.

9. The method as recited in claim 7, including a further step of

verifying that an input stream conforms to one of a set of valid input sequences.

10. The method as recited in claim 9, including a further step of

producing a notification when an input stream deviates from a set of valid, allowable input sequences.

11. The method as recited in claim 7, including a further step of

producing a notification when an input stream deviates from a set of valid, allowable input sequences.