Efficiently describing relationships between resources

• US 8,135,750 B2
• Filed: 04/22/2005
• Issued: 03/13/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/22/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Shur, Andrey, MacKenzie, Bruce A., Walker, Charles S., Ornstein, David B., Dunietz, Jerry J., Pollock, Joshua M., Sheth, Sarjana B., Nichols, Isaac E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Badawi, Sherief
• Application Number:
  US11/111,882
• Publication Number:
  US 20060242184A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,517 Days
• Field of Search: 707/103, 707/794, 707/809, 707/802, 707/803, 715/234
• US Class Current: 707/794
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9024 Graphs; Linked lists G06F16/9027 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/907 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/986 Document structures and storage, e.g. HTML extensions

Abstract

A relationship data structure associated with a source resource enables methods to discover and describe relationships between the source resource and a plurality of target resources. The relationships are stored in a format independent of the encoding of the source resource. Each relationship between the source resource and the plurality of target resources is stored in a content-neutral format, and the relationship data structure stores, a location of each target resource, a type of relationship with each target resource and an identifier to uniquely identify each relationship between the source resource and each target resource. Accordingly, the relationship data structure allows a decoder to directly discover the relationships between the source resource and the plurality of target resources without decoding the source resource or target resources.

Claims

1. A method to describe a plurality of relationships between a source resource and a plurality of target resources, the plurality of relationships encoded in a format independent of an encoding of the source resource, the method comprising:

selecting a namespace that defines a relationship schema between an encrypted source resource where the relationship originates and at least one related encrypted target resource from a plurality of target resources where the relationship terminates, wherein the relationship schema is encoded in a format that is independent of the encrypted source resource'"'"'s encoding and the at least one related encrypted target resource from a plurality of target resources'"'"' encoding, wherein the relationship schema can be decoded without decoding the encrypted source resource or the at least one related encrypted target resource;

storing the encrypted source resource, the relationship schema, and the at least one related encrypted target resource in a package;

populating a relationship data structure based on the plurality of relationships and the relationship schema;

storing the plurality of relationships in the relationship data structure; and

associating the relationship data structure with the encrypted source resource, wherein associating the relationship data structure with the encrypted source resource comprises;

creating a container at a location relative to the encrypted source resource; and

storing the relationship data structure in the container.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of target resources are resources selected from a group consisting of local, external and relative resources.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein populating the relationship data structure further comprises:

retrieving identification information that identifies the plurality of relationships; and

validating the retrieved identification information by utilizing the relationship schema.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the relationship schema comprises an XML schema.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the address relative to the location of the source resource addresses a subfolder at the location of the source resource.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the relationship data structure comprises metadata to describe the encrypted source resource.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing another related encrypted target resource in a second package, wherein the package and the second package are related.

8. A method to discover a plurality of relationships between a source resource and a plurality of target resources, the plurality of relationships encoded in a format independent of an encoding of the source resource or the plurality of target resources, the method comprising:

locating the source resource where a relationship originates, and locating a related target resource where the relationship terminates;

determining whether a relationship data structure comprising hierarchy-structured relationship information is associated with the located source resource, wherein determining whether the relationship data structure is associated with the source resource further comprises;

checking for an existence of a subfolder at a location of the source resource, wherein the subfolder stores source resource metadata and is located at an address relative to the location of the source resource;

decoding the plurality of relationships without decoding the source resource or the related target resource, wherein decoding the plurality of relationships without decoding the source resource further comprises;

prior to decoding the plurality of relationships, determining a schema of the relationship data structure identified by a namespace associated with the relationship data structure and

utilizing the schema to decode the plurality of relationships stored in the relationship data structure; and

displaying the plurality of relationships.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the source resource or the plurality of target resources are encrypted resources.

10. The method according to claim 8, wherein the source and the plurality of target resources are addressed using a Pack URI.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the relationship data structure comprises metadata to describe the source resource.

12. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

adding a new relationship to the source resource.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

storing the new relationship in the relationship data structure.

14. A computer-storage medium storing a relationship data structure that provides data corresponding to a plurality of relationships between a source resource and a plurality of target resources, the relationship data structure comprises:

identification information to uniquely identify each relationship of the plurality of relationships;

target information for each identified relationship to specify a location of each target resource of the plurality of target resources where a relationship terminates, which is related to the source resource where the relationship originates, wherein the plurality of identified relationships stored in the relationship data structure are nested;

semantic information to assist a decoder when decoding the identified relationship of the plurality of relationships, wherein content encoding format of the plurality of relationships differs from the source resource content encoding format and the plurality of target resources content encoding formats, and the plurality of relationships can be decoded without decoding the source resource or any of the plurality of target resources; and

a relationship data structure comprising one or more relationship tags to define the identified relationship between the source resource and the target resource, wherein each of the one or more relationship tags comprise an identification element, a type element, and a target element.

15. The computer-storage medium storing the relationship data structure of claim 14, wherein the relationship data structure includes metadata to describe the source resource.

16. The computer-storage medium of claim 14, wherein the target element defines a location of the at least one related encrypted target resource, the location comprising one or more of a pack Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), an absolute Uniform Resource Locator (URL), or a relative URL.