Utility for identifying differences between two Java objects

• US 20040221264A1
• Filed: 09/22/2003
• Published: 11/04/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 05/02/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A. (JP Morgan Chase & Co)
• Original Assignee: JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A. (JP Morgan Chase & Co)
• Inventors: Phenix, John
• Granted Patent: US 7,814,073 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/116
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/315 Object-oriented languages
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/71 Version control security arrangements therefor G06F21/57; Configuration management

Abstract

A utility for comparing two objects in an object-oriented operating system that also records the differences so that they may be put into human-readable form. In one exemplary embodiment of this invention, two Java objects are compared by calling one of the equality methods. If the selected equality method indicates that there is a difference between the two objects, then get . . . ( ) methods of each object are invoked in turn. The results get . . . ( ) methods are compared. If there are differences, the differences are stored in an XML document. The get . . . ( ) method is recursively invoked until the Class of the result has no more get . . . ( ) methods to decompose.

Claims

1. A method for comparing a first object and a second object in an object-oriented operating system comprising the steps of:

(a) determining whether the first object is equal to the second object;

(b) obtaining one or more methods from said first object and said second object if said objects are not equal;

(c) determining whether the one or more methods from said first object are equal to the one or more methods from said second object; and

(d) recursively performing steps (b) and (c) until there are no more methods to decompose.

2. A method in accordance with claim 1 further including the step of:

(e) generating a document comprising the differences between methods.

3. A method in accordance with claim 2 wherein step (b) further comprises storing names of said methods, step (c) comprises storing indicia representing the determination whether the methods are the same and step (e) comprises generating a document from said stored names and indicia.

4. A method in accordance with claim 1 wherein said object-oriented language comprises JAVA and step (a) comprises running an equality method on said objects.

5. A method in accordance with claim 1 wherein said object-oriented language comprises JAVA and step (c) comprises running an equality method on said objects.

6. A method in accordance with claim 2 further including the step of:

(f) transforming the document into human-readable form.

7. A method in accordance with claim 6 wherein human-readable form comprises XML.

8. A method in accordance with claim 6 wherein transforming the document into human-readable form comprises transforming the document into a web page.

9. A method in accordance with claim 1 wherein said object-oriented language comprises JAVA and step (b) comprises invoking the get . . . ( ) methods of each object.

10. A method in accordance with claim 2 wherein defining a plurality of function items comprises defining a function for each of said plurality of function items.