Document transformation

• US 9,965,453 B2
• Filed: 10/15/2009
• Issued: 05/08/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 10/15/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Davis, Joseph M., Joshi, Vishal R., Lu, Alison Q.
• Primary Examiner(s): Amin, Mustafa A
• Application Number:
  US12/579,417
• Publication Number:
  US 20110093774A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,127 Days
• Field of Search: 715236
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/154 Tree transformation for tree-structured or markup documents, e.g. XSLT, XSL-FO or stylesheets

Abstract

Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to transforming documents. In aspects, a transformer obtains a source document and a transformation document. The transformation document indicates changes to make to the source document to transform the source document. The transformation document also includes location information that indicates where the changes are to be made. The transforms indicated by the transformation document may be extensible. Using the source document and the transformation document, the transformer transforms the source document into a target document. The transformer may be part of a development environment used to develop applications.

Claims

1. A method implemented at least in part by a computer, the method comprising:

obtaining a copy of a source XML (Extensible Markup Language) document, the source XML document including configuration data for use by an application in conjunction with the application executing in an environment;

obtaining a transformation document that includes declarative statements that indicate modifications to make to the copy to transform the copy into a target XML document, the transformation document also including location information that indicates nodes in the copy upon which the modifications are to operate;

transforming, within an integrated development environment, the copy of the source XML document according to the transformation document to create the target XML document, a first declarative statement of the transformation document indicating a file and an element of the copy, the file including additional declarative statements that indicate one or more modifications to make to the element of the copy, transforming the copy including applying the one or more modification to the element of the copy; and

providing the target XML document; and

wherein the copy and the transformation document have an identical schema that expresses constraints on structure and content of the copy and transformation document, the constraints additional to constraints imposed by XML.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining a transformation document that includes declarative statements comprises obtaining a transformation document that differs from the copy only by transform statements and setting changes included in the transformation document that are not included in the copy.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining a transformation document that includes declarative statements comprises obtaining a transformation document that includes transforms, each transform indicating an action to take with respect to a node of the copy.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein obtaining a transformation document that includes transforms comprises obtaining transforms that indicate one or more of removing a node along with its children, if any, removing all nodes under a parent node, inserting the node under the parent node, setting one or more attributes of the node, and removing one or more attributes of the node.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining a transformation document that includes location information comprises obtaining a transformation document that encodes the location information in nodes of the transformation document, at least some of the nodes of the transformation document corresponding to at least some nodes of the copy.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining a transformation document that includes location information comprises obtaining a transformation document that includes locators, the locators indicating match conditions and/or equality/inequality conditions applicable to one or more attributes of nodes of the copy.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the transformation document includes at least two transforms to a single node in the copy and wherein transforming transforms the single node in the copy by applying the at least two transforms to the copy in an order in which the at least two transforms appears in the transformation document.

8. A computing apparatus, comprising:

one or more processors;

one or more memory devices that store computer-executable instructions for execution by the one or more processors, the computer-executable instructions configured to perform actions including;

reading a copy of a source document and transformation data from a transformation document, the source document including first configuration data for use by an application in conjunction with the application executing in a first environment;

determining a location at which to make a modification to the copy based on the transformation data; and

determining a transform corresponding to the modification;

applying the transform to the copy at the location to create transformed data suitable for the application for when the application executes in a second environment; and

wherein the copy and the transformation document have an identical schema that expresses constraints on structure and content of the copy and transformation document, the constraints additional to constraints imposed by one or more languages in which the copy and the transformation document are represented.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein said reading comprises identifying nodes in the copy and the transformation document, the copy and the transformation document having nodes arranged in a hierarchical manner, each node including a set of related data.

10. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein said determining a location comprises determining a location at which to make a modification to the copy by matching a transform node included in the transformation document with a corresponding node included in the source document, the transform node including an indication of the transform.

11. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein said determining a location comprises determining a location at which to make a modification to the copy by matching a path indicated in the transformation data.

12. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein said determining a location comprises determining a location at which at which to make a modification to the copy by matching a condition indicated in the transformation data.

13. The apparatus of claim 8, further comprising identifying errors, if any, in the transformation document and displaying, via a user interface, text associated with the errors, the transformation document including the text.

14. The apparatus of claim 8, further comprising calling custom code in conjunction with a transform that is not natively implemented by the transform manager.

15. A computer storage medium having computer-executable instructions, which when executed perform actions, comprising:

obtaining first configuration data for an application that is operable to execute in a first environment;

obtaining transformation data that indicates modifications to make to the first configuration data to create second configuration data suitable for when the application is executing in a second environment, the transformation data encoded in a declarative language;

transforming the first configuration data according to the modifications indicated in the transformation data to create the second configuration data; and

wherein the first configuration data and the transformation data have an identical schema that expresses constraints on structure and content of the first configuration data and the transformation data, the constraints additional to constraints imposed by one or more languages in which the first configuration data and the transformation data are represented.

16. The computer storage medium of claim 15, wherein obtaining first configuration data for an application comprises obtaining the configuration data from an XML (Extensible Markup Language) document.

17. The computer storage medium of claim 15, wherein obtaining transformation data that indicates modifications comprises obtaining transformation data that includes transforms, the transforms indicating changes to make to the first configuration data to transform the first configuration data into the second configuration data.

18. The computer storage medium of claim 15, wherein obtaining transformation data that indicates modifications comprises obtaining transformation data that includes location information, the location information indicating locations within the first configuration data at which the modifications are to be made.

19. The computer storage medium of claim 15, wherein transforming the first configuration data according to the modifications indicated in the transformation data to create the second configuration data comprises placing markers in the second configuration data to indicate that data in the second configuration data needs to be filled in to prepare the second environment for the application.

20. The computer storage medium of claim 15, wherein a first declarative statement of the transformation data indicates a file and an element of the first configuration data, the file including additional declarative statements that indicate one or more modifications to make to the element of the first configuration data, transforming the first configuration data including applying the one or more modification to the element of the first configuration data.