Compositional application programming interface and literal syntax

• US 8,387,004 B2
• Filed: 02/09/2007
• Issued: 02/26/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 02/09/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Beckman, Brian C., Meijer, Henricus Johannes Maria, Van Velzen, Danny, Zabokritski, Evgueni
• Primary Examiner(s): TECKLU, ISAAC TUKU
• Application Number:
  US11/673,149
• Publication Number:
  US 20080196005A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,209 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 717/109
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/20 Software design

Abstract

A compositional application programming interface (API) permits non-sequential construct declaration independent of other API calls. A wrapper is applied to an imperative API to provide a compositional interface that enables arbitrary and autonomous construct declaration. Additionally, a literal syntax (e.g., code literals, graphic literals . . . ) affords a convenient declaration mechanism for such constructs.

Claims

1. A computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable components stored thereon, the computer-executable components comprising:

an imperative application programming interface (API); and

a wrapper component configured to provide a compositional interface to the imperative API to enable expressions of the imperative API to be declared via the wrapper component in an order restricted by the imperative API, the wrapper component further configured to facilitate generating the expressions by reordering a calling of the expressions from the order restricted by the imperative API to a manner acceptable with the imperative API a constructor component configured to enable context free element instance declaration, wherein the constructor component is configured to capture element declarations as functions that accept context.

2. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, at least one element is declared in a literal syntax.

3. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, the at least one element is declared as a code literal.

4. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, a portion of the code literal references a value from its programming environment.

5. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, the at least one element is declared as a graphical literal.

6. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, further comprising a context component configured to link an element to a context as a function of a relation to one or more other elements.

7. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the imperative API is configured to provide functionality for code generation applications.

8. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the wrapper component is configured to separate object declaration from object building.

9. A computer programming method, comprising;

receiving a program specified with aid from a compositional wrapping of an imperative application programming interface (API), wherein the compositional wrapping facilitates a generation of expressions by reordering a calling of the expressions from an order restricted by the imperative API to a manner acceptable with the imperative API

using a constructor component enabling context free element instance declaration, wherein the constructor component is configured to capture element declarations as functions that accept context; and

executing the program to generate another program.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising receiving specification of programmatic elements independent of other functionality.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising receiving code that links a plurality of independently specified programmatic elements together.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising employing functionality provided by the imperative API to build program constructs in accordance with a sequence imposed by the imperative API.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising receiving specification of at least one programmatic element that employs a code literal.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising receiving specification of at least one programmatic element that employs a code literal that includes reference to an environmental value.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising inferring a type associated with the code literal.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising deserializing a code literal from a data store.

17. A computer-readable storage medium, comprising:

computer-readable instructions, the computer-readable instructions including instructions for causing at least one processor to perform the following acts;

providing programmatic support for code generation that separates object declaration from object building, wherein the providing comprises converting an imperative application programming interface (API) into a compositional API to facilitate generating expressions by reordering a calling of the expressions from an order restricted by the imperative API to a manner acceptable with the imperative API

using a constructor component enabling context free element instance declaration, wherein the constructor component is configured to capture element declarations as functions that accept context; and

specifying code to be generated literally.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, the computer-readable instructions further comprising instructions for causing at least one processor to perform the following acts:

declaring objects without context; and

linking objects to context.