System and method for efficient processing of XML documents represented as an event stream

• US 20040006741A1
• Filed: 04/24/2003
• Published: 01/08/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 04/24/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Radja, Coumara D., Moog, Thomas H.
• Granted Patent: US 7,356,764 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/513
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/149 Adaptation of the text data for streaming purposes, e.g. Efficient XML Interchange [EXI] format
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/221 Parsing markup language streams streaming G06F40/149

Abstract

A method and apparatus are provided for processing a representation of an XML document to create a sequence of contiguous bytes for transfer from a source to a destination. The method includes the steps of parsing the representation of the XML document into a set of information items, determining a relationship among the information items from the representation of the XML document, assigning an operation code to each information element based upon the determined relationship, where each assigned operation code defines how the associated information should be interpreted at the destination and

forming the operation codes and information items into a sequence of contiguous bytes suitable for transfer from the source to the destination, said byte sequence not depending upon any memory address assigned to the byte sequence.

Claims

1. A method of processing a representation of an XML document to create a sequence of contiguous bytes for transfer from a source to a destination, such method comprising the steps of:

parsing the representation of the XML document into a set of information items;

determining a relationship among the information items from the representation of the XML document;

assigning an operation code to each information element based upon the determined relationship, where each assigned operation code defines how the associated information should be interpreted at the destination; and

forming the operation codes and information items into a sequence of contiguous bytes suitable for transfer from the source to the destination, said byte sequence not depending upon any memory address assigned to the byte sequence.

2. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 1 wherein the representation of the XML document further comprises a World Wide Web Consortium Document Object Model.

3. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 1 wherein the representation of the XML document further comprises a representation provided by an application programming interface for XML.

4. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 1 wherein the representation of the XML document further comprises a conventional XML document.

5. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 1 further comprising providing a namespace table for the sequence of contiguous bytes.

6. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 5 further comprising detecting a prefix and a uniform resource identifier of a namespace identifying a beginning of the namespace within the representation of the XML document.

7. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 6 further comprising determining an offset of the beginning of the namespace from a header of the sequence of contiguous bytes.

8. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 7 further comprising saving the namespace prefix, uniform resource identifier, and offset of the beginning of the namespace in the namespace table as a single information field.

9. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 8 further comprising determining an offset of an end of the namespace from the header of the sequence of contiguous bytes.

10. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 9 further comprising saving the offset of the end of the namespace into the single information field of the namespace table.

11. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 10 further comprising appending the namespace table to an end of the sequence of contiguous bytes.

12. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 11 further comprising inserting an offset and length of the appended namespace table into a predetermined location near the header of the sequence of contiguous bytes.

13. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 12 further comprising using the namespace table to determine the XML Namespace information items which are well-defined at any point of the XML document represented by the Event Stream sequence of bytes without the need for processing parts of the Event Stream sequence of bytes which are not XML namespace information items.

14. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 13 further comprising using the namespace table to determine at any point of the XML document represented by the Event Stream sequence of bytes, the XML namespace information items which are well-defined and visible because they are not hidden by a later XML namespace information item, without the need for processing parts of the Event Stream sequence of bytes which are not XML Namespace information items.

15. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 1 further comprising providing an index table for the sequence of contiguous bytes.

16. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 15 further comprising detecting a predetermined information item within the representation of the XML document.

17. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 16 further comprising determining an offset of a beginning of the predetermined information item from a header of the sequence of contiguous bytes.

18. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 17 further comprising saving an identifier of the predetermined information item and offset of the beginning of the information item in the index table as a single information field.

19. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 18 further comprising appending the index table to an end of the sequence of contiguous bytes.

20. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 19 further comprising inserting an offset of the appended index table into a predetermined location near the header of the sequence of contiguous bytes.

21. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 20 further comprising using the index table to identify the predetermined information items in the sequence of continuous bytes that should be processed and presenting them in an identical order as they appear in the section table at the sequence destination without the need to process items of the sequence that are unrelated to the predetermined information items.

22. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 20 further comprising using the index table to identify the predetermined information items in the sequence of contiguous bytes that should be processed and presenting them in an identical order as they appear in the sequence at the sequence destination without the need to process items of the sequence that are unrelated to the predetermined information items.

23. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 20 further comprising using the index table to identify the predetermined information items in the sequence of continuous bytes that should be excluded from being processed and presenting the remainder of the sequence at the sequence destination.

24. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 1 further comprising combining the representation of the XML document with another representation of an XML document by combining the sequence of contiguous bytes derived from the representation of the first XML document with the sequence of byes derived from the second XML document.

25. The method of processing the representation of the XML document as in claim 1 further comprising providing additional instructions for the processing of the sequence of contiguous bytes at the sequence destination by inserting additional operation codes that are unrelated to the representation of the XML document.

26. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 25 further comprising providing instructions for formatting the output of the sequence of contiguous bytes by inserting additional operation codes.

27. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 24 wherein the instruction for formatting the output further comprises hypertext markup language according to the World Wide Web Consortium XSLT specification for formatting an XML result document with hypertext markup language output method.

28. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 24 wherein the instruction for formatting the output further comprises text according to the World Wide Web Consortium XSLT specification for formatting an XML result document with text output method.

29. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 24 wherein the instruction for formatting the output further comprises a conventional XML document according to the World Wide Web Consortium XSLT specification for formatting an XML result document with XML output method.

30. An apparatus for processing a representation of an XML document to create a sequence of contiguous bytes for transfer from a source to a destination, such apparatus comprising:

means for parsing the representation of the XML document into a set of information items;

means for determining a relationship among the information items from the representation of the XML document;

means for assigning an operation code to each information element based upon the determined relationship, where each assigned operation code defines how the associated information should be interpreted at the destination; and

means for forming the operation codes and information items into a sequence of contiguous bytes suitable for transfer from the source to the destination, said byte sequence not depending upon any memory address assigned to the byte sequence.

31. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 30 wherein the representation of the XML document further comprises a World Wide Web Consortium Document Object Model.

32. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 30 wherein the representation of the XML document further comprises a representation provided by an application programming interface for XML.

33. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 30 wherein the representation of the XML document further comprises a conventional XML document.

34. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 30 further comprising means for providing a namespace table for the sequence of contiguous bytes.

35. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 30 further comprising means for detecting a prefix and a uniform resource identifier of a namespace identifying a beginning of the namespace within the representation of the XML document.

36. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 35 further comprising means for determining an offset of the beginning of the namespace from a header of the sequence of contiguous bytes.

37. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 36 further comprising means for saving the namespace prefix, uniform resource identifier, and offset of the beginning of the namespace in the namespace table as a single information field.

38. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 37 further comprising means for determining an offset of an end of the namespace from the header of the sequence of contiguous bytes.

39. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 38 further comprising means for saving the offset of the end of the namespace into the single information field of the namespace table.

40. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 39 further comprising means for appending the namespace table to an end of the sequence of contiguous bytes.

41. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 40 further comprising means for inserting an offset and length of the appended namespace table into a predetermined location near the header of the sequence of contiguous bytes.

42. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 30 further comprising means for providing an index table for the sequence of contiguous bytes.

43. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 42 further comprising means for detecting a predetermined information item within the representation of the XML document.

44. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 43 further comprising means for determining an offset of a beginning of the predetermined information item from a header of the sequence of contiguous bytes.

45. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 44 further comprising means for saving an identifier of the predetermined information item and offset of the beginning of the information item in the index table as a single information field.

46. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 45 further comprising means for appending the index table to an end of the sequence of contiguous bytes.

47. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 46 further comprising means for inserting an offset and length of the appended index table into a predetermined location near the header of the sequence of contiguous bytes.

48. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 47 further comprising means for using the index table to identify the predetermined information items in the sequence of continuous bytes that should be processed and presenting them in an identical order as they appear in the index table at the sequence destination without the need to process items of the sequence that are unrelated to the predetermined information items.

49. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 47 further comprising means for using the index table to identify the predetermined information items in the sequence of contiguous bytes that should be processed and presenting them in an identical order as they appear in the sequence at the sequence destination without the need to process items of the sequence that are unrelated to the predetermined information items.

50. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 47 further comprising means for using the index table to identify the predetermined information items in the sequence of continuous bytes that should be excluded from being processed and presenting the remainder of the sequence at the sequence destination.

51. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 30 further comprising means for combining the representation of the XML document with another representation of an XML document by combining the sequence of contiguous bytes derived from the representation of the first XML document with the sequence of byes derived from the second XML document.

52. The apparatus for processing the representation of the XML document as in claim 30 further comprising means for providing additional instructions for the processing of the sequence of contiguous bytes at the sequence destination by inserting additional operation codes that are unrelated to the representation of the XML document.

53. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 52 further comprising means for providing instructions for formatting the output of the sequence of contiguous bytes by inserting additional operation codes.

54. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 53 wherein the instruction for formatting the output further comprises hypertext markup language according to the World Wide Web Consortium XSLT specification for formatting an XML result document with hypertext markup language output method.

55. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 53 wherein the instruction for formatting the output further comprises text according to the World Wide Web Consortium XSLT specification for formatting an XML result document with text output method.

56. The method of processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 53 wherein the instruction for formatting the output further comprises a conventional XML document according to the World Wide Web Consortium XSLT specification for formatting an XML result document with XML output method.

57. An apparatus for processing a representation of an XML document to create a sequence of contiguous bytes for transfer from a source to a destination, such apparatus comprising:

a parser adapted to parse the representation of the XML document into a set of information items;

a relationship processor adapted to determine a relationship among the information items from the representation of the XML document;

an operation code processor adapted to assign an operation code to each information element based upon the determined relationship, where each assigned operation code defines how the associated information should be interpreted at the destination; and

an assembly processor adapted to form the operation codes and information items into a sequence of contiguous bytes suitable for transfer from the source to the destination, said byte sequence not depending upon any memory address assigned to the byte sequence.

58. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 57 wherein the representation of the XML document further comprises a World Wide Web Consortium Document Object Model.

59. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 57 wherein the representation of the XML document further comprises a representation provided by an application programming interface for XML.

60. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 57 wherein the representation of the XML document further comprises a conventional XML document.

61. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 57 further comprising a namespace table provided for the sequence of contiguous bytes.

62. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 57 further comprising a namespace table processor adapted to detect a prefix and a uniform resource identifier of a namespace identifying a beginning of the namespace within the representation of the XML document.

63. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 57 further comprising a namespace table offset processor adapted to determine an offset of the beginning of the namespace table from a header of the sequence of contiguous bytes.

64. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 63 further comprising a namespace table pointer processor adapted to save an offset of the namespace table from the header of the sequence of contiguous bytes into a predetermined location within a header of the sequence of contiguous bytes.

65. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 57 further comprising an index table provided for locating a predetermined item within the sequence of contiguous bytes.

66. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 65 further comprising an index table offset processor adapted to determine an offset of the beginning of the Index Table from a header of the sequence of contiguous bytes.

67. The apparatus for processing the representation of an XML document as in claim 66 further comprising an index table pointer processor adapted to save an offset of the Index Table from the header of the sequence of contiguous bytes into a predetermined location within a header of the sequence of contiguous bytes.