Detecting serialization scheme used in software applications

• US 9,122,491 B2
• Filed: 03/06/2014
• Issued: 09/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/21/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Razer (Asia-Pacific) Pte. Ltd. (Razer Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Nextbit Systems, Inc. (Razer Incorporated)
• Inventors: Chan, Michael A., Quan, Justin, Fleming, Michael K., Bornstein, Daniel R.
• Primary Examiner(s): COYER, RYAN D
• Application Number:
  US14/199,909
• Publication Number:
  US 20140289717A1
• Time in Patent Office: 544 Days
• Field of Search: 717/147
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/113 Details of archiving lifecycle management in storage systems G06F3/0649; backup systems G06F11/1446
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/116 Details of conversion of file system types or formats
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/122 using management policies backup systems G06F11/1446; file migration policies for HSM systems G06F16/185
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/16 File or folder operations, e.g. details of user interfaces specifically adapted to file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/168 Details of user interfaces specifically adapted to file systems, e.g. browsing and visualisation, 2d or 3d GUIs query results presentation G06F16/156
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1734 Details of monitoring file system events, e.g. by the use of hooks, filter drivers, logs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/178 Techniques for file synchronisation in file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1787 Details of non-transparently synchronising file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/182 Distributed file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/27 Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system architectures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/44 Encoding
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0816 the condition being an adaptation, e.g. in response to network events
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/70 Admission control; Resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/78 Architectures of resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0853 using an additional device, e.g. smartcard, SIM or a different communication terminal cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication involving additional secure or trusted devices H04L9/3234
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 : specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 : in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 : Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 : for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 : User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 : Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/04 : Protocols for data compression, e.g. ROHC
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/06 : Authentication
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 : Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

Technology is disclosed for determining a serialization scheme used in serializing a software object by an application (“the technology”). A source application can serialize the object using multiple serialization schemes. In order for another application to deserialize the object serialized by the source application, the application may have to know the serialization scheme used in serializing the object. The technology can analyze an intermediate code, e.g., bytecode, of the source application to determine the serialization scheme used by the source application. The technology compares a portion of the code of the source application that serializes the objects with multiple serialization scheme templates having code for known serialization schemes and determines the serialization scheme used by the source application based on a matching serialization scheme template. After the serialization scheme is identified, the application can reconstruct the object from the serialized object using the identified serialization scheme.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving, by a computing system, a code of an application, the code being in an intermediate format, the intermediate format being intermediate to a source format and an executable format of the code;

translating, by the computer system, the code from the intermediate format to the pseudo-intermediate format;

comparing, by the computer system, one or more portions of the code in the pseudo-intermediate format with one or more application programming interface (API) associated with serialization of a given object into a corresponding data stream;

identifying, by the computing system, a particular portion of the code from the one or more portions of the code, the particular portion of the code including a reference to at least one of the one or more API, wherein the particular portion of the code includes the code for serializing an instance of the given object into its corresponding data stream, the serializing performed using a target serialization scheme;

determining, by the computer system, if the particular portion of the code matches with one of multiple serialization scheme templates, the serialization scheme templates corresponding to distinct serialization schemes; and

responsive to a determination that the portion of the code matches with a serialization scheme template of the serialization scheme templates, identifying, by the computer system, a serialization scheme corresponding to the serialization scheme template as the target serialization scheme used by the application.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

deserializing the data stream using the target serialization scheme to obtain an instance of the object, the instance of the object having a plurality of attributes and corresponding attribute values.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 further comprising:

generating an analysis of the object, the analysis including information regarding the attributes of the instance; and

using the instance of the object in another application based on the analysis.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the source format of the code is generated using an object oriented programming language, and wherein the code in the intermediate format is a bytecode of the application.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the serialization scheme templates include a set of code for the serialization schemes in the intermediate format.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein determining if the portion of the code matches with one of multiple serialization scheme templates includes:

comparing the portion of the code in the intermediate format with the serialization scheme templates in the intermediate format, and

identifying the serialization scheme template whose corresponding set of code for the corresponding serialization scheme matches with the portion of the code.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the serialization scheme templates include a set of code for the serialization schemes in a pseudo-intermediate format, the pseudo-intermediate format being a combination of the intermediate format and the source format.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein identifying a portion of the code having the code for serializing an instance of an object into a data stream includes:

translating, by the computer system, the code from the intermediate format to the pseudo-intermediate format,

comparing the portion of the code in the pseudo-intermediate format with the serialization scheme templates, and

identifying the serialization scheme template whose corresponding set of code for the corresponding serialization scheme matches with the portion of the code.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein translating the code from the intermediate format to the pseudo-intermediate format includes using a translator application associated with a programming language in which the application is generated to translate the code into the pseudo-intermediate format.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the object is an user interface element.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the application includes a plurality of user interface elements, and wherein at least a subset of the user interface elements are serialized based on distinct target serialization schemes.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

storing the data stream as a serialized object at a storage device of the computing system.

13. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving, by a computing system, a bytecode of a graphical user interface (GUI) based application, the application having a plurality of user interface (UI) elements;

translating, by the computing system, the bytecode of the application into a pseudo-bytecode;

comparing, by the computer system, one or more portions of the code in the pseudo-bytecode with serialization of a given instance of a given UI element into a corresponding data stream;

identifying, by the computing system, a particular portion of the bytecode from the one or more portions of the bytecode, that particular portion of the bytecode including a reference to at least one of the one or more API, wherein the particular portion of the bytecode includes the code for serializing an instance of a UI element of the UI elements into its corresponding data stream, the serializing performed using a target serialization scheme;

determining, by the computer system, if the particular portion of the bytecode matches with a serialization scheme corresponding to a serialization scheme template; and

responsive to a determination that the particular portion of the bytecode matches with the serialization scheme template, identifying, by the computer system, the serialization scheme corresponding to the serialization scheme template as the target serialization scheme used by the application.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 13, wherein the bytecode of the application is an intermediate code, the intermediate code being intermediate to a corresponding source code and corresponding executable code of the application.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the pseudo-bytecode is a format that includes a first portion of a code of the application in a source code format and a second portion of the code in a bytecode format.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 13 further comprising:

deserializing the data stream using the target serialization scheme to obtain an instance of the UI element, the instance of the UI element having a plurality of attributes and corresponding attribute values.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 16 further comprising:

generating an analysis of the instance of the UI element, the analysis including information regarding the attributes of the instance; and

using the instance of the UI element in another application based on the analysis.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 13, wherein translating the bytecode to the pseudo-bytecode includes using a translator application associated with a programming language in which the application is generated to generate the pseudo-bytecode.

19. An apparatus, comprising:

a processor;

a code analyzing module that works in cooperation with the processor to identify a portion of a code of an application representing the code for serializing an instance of an object into a data stream, the identification of the portion of the code being performed by converting the code into a pseudo-intermediate format and comparing one or more portions of the code in the pseudo-intermediate format and comparing one or more portions of the code in the pseudo-intermediate format with one or more application programming interface (API) associated with serialization of a given object into a corresponding data stream, the serializing performed using a target serialization scheme, wherein the portion of the code being identified includes a reference to at least one of the one or more API;

a serialization scheme lookup module that works in cooperation with the processor to find a serialization scheme template from multiple serialization scheme templates that matches with the portion of the code, the serialization scheme templates including sets of code corresponding to distinct serialization schemes; and

a serialization scheme identifying module that works in cooperation with the processor to identifying a serialization scheme corresponding to the serialization scheme template as the target serialization scheme used by the application.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the code of the application is in an intermediate format, the intermediate format being intermediate to a source format and an executable format of the code.

21. The apparatus of claim 19 further comprising:

a deserialization module to deserialize the data stream using the target serialization scheme to obtain an instance of the object, the object having a plurality of attributes and corresponding attribute values.

22. The apparatus of claim 19 further comprising:

an object analysis module to generating an analysis of the instance of the object, the analysis including information regarding the attributes of the instance.