Dynamic update of changing data in user application via mapping to broker topic

• US 20060080596A1
• Filed: 10/07/2004
• Published: 04/13/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 10/07/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bhogal, Kulvir Singh, Kang, Kwang Sik
• Granted Patent: US 7,530,077 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/213
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/545 Gui
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/543 User-generated data transfer, e.g. clipboards, dynamic data exchange [DDE], object linking and embedding [OLE]

Abstract

A method and service for enabling a smallest unit of variable data within a data space of a user application to be dynamically updated using an external source. The application GUI is enhanced with a dynamic update utility (DUU) that enables the data unit to be selected and linked to the broker topic. A list of available topics is presented for selection by the user, and the data unit automatically linked to the selected broker topic without requiring user knowledge of the specific linking parameters of the external source. A JMS client application is provided containing a message listener and an application writing protocol. A subscriber is defined for the data unit and subscribes to the particular event broker topic hosted at a JMS provider. When the event broker receives a publication from the data publication source, a copy of the published data is forwarded to the message listener associated with the subscriber, and the message listener provides the data to the application writing protocol. The application writing protocol then automatically overwrites the data unit with the published data.

Claims

1. In a data processing system having an application program with a data unit having data, a method for enabling dynamic, real-time updates to data of the data unit, said method comprising:

associating the data unit to a topic on an event broker on a network, wherein said event broker topic receives updates to said data by an external data source;

receiving said updates from said event broker via a message transfer service of the network; and

updating the data in the data unit in response to receiving said updates.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said associating step uses a publish/subscribe messaging paradigm and includes creating a subscription of said data unit to said event broker topic, said subscription having a corresponding message listener for receiving updates from said event broker, and wherein the associating step is performed using a graphical user interface (GUI), which is a visual component of said application program that displays the data to a user, and wherein said associating step includes:

opening a menu with an option to link said data unit to an event broker topic responsive to a user selection within said data unit; and

linking said data unit to a particular user-selected event broker topic when said user selects said event broker topic to associate with said data unit.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said associating step further comprises:

first prompting said user for entry of a search term to define the appropriate event broker topic required;

selecting, from among a master list of event broker topics, a set of appropriate event broker topics associated with the search term to provide to said user for selection.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein said linking step further comprises:

responsive to a user selection to link said cell to an event broker topic, automatically displaying a list of selectable event broker topics from which the user may select an appropriate event broker topic to link to the data unit.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

generating the subscription message with a user selected topic within a topic header;

automatically assigning an appropriate network address of the event broker hosting said user selected topic to said subscription message; and

issuing said subscription message on the network with an address header for the event broker.

6. The method of claim 2, said associating step further comprising:

prompting said user for addressing information for the event broker topic; and

encapsulating a user-entered addressing information within a generated subscription message, wherein;

said issuing step issues said subscription message to an event broker identified by said user-entered addressing information; and

when said addressing information is not a correct address of an existing event broker, said method further includes;

generating an error message; and

listing a selection of available event broker topics to which the user may link the data unit for said updates.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein when the event broker contains multiple topics or multiple events within a topic, said method further comprises:

filtering said event broker topic, wherein said filtering parses an event broker topic using SQL/SQL92 for specific information desired by said subscriber; and

receiving updates of only relevant data from said event broker topic as determined by said SQL/SQL92 filtering.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing characteristics associated with the update within a tracking utility, wherein said characteristics include one or more of a time stamp, a data stamp, a notation made to the data by the event source, and other relevant characteristics assigned to the update; and

enabling a display of said characteristics via selection and manipulation of said data unit.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said application program is an Excel spreadsheet application and said data unit is a cell of said spreadsheet, wherein further HSSF protocol of the Apache POI APIs is utilized as the writing utility, wherein further, the subscriber and associated message listener are components of JMS (Java Messaging Service) client application.

10. A computer program product comprising:

a computer readable medium; and

program code on said computer readable medium for enabling dynamic, real-time updates to changing data of a data unit, said program code comprising code for;

associating the data unit to a topic on an event broker on a network, wherein said event broker topic receives updates to said data by an external data source, wherein said associating code uses a publish/subscribe messaging paradigm and includes creating a subscription of said data unit to said event broker topic, said subscription having a corresponding message listener for receiving updates from said event broker, wherein said associating code provides a graphical user interface (GUI), which is a visual component of said application program that displays the data to a user, and wherein said associating code includes code for;

opening a menu with an option to link said data unit to an event broker topic responsive to a user selection within said data unit; and

linking said data unit to a particular user-selected event broker topic when said user selects said event broker topic to associate with said data unit;

receiving said updates from said event broker via a message transfer service of the network, wherein when the event broker contains multiple topics or multiple events within a topic, said computer program product further comprises code for;

filtering said event broker topic, wherein said filtering parses an event broker topic using SQL/SQL92 for specific information desired by said subscriber; and

receiving updates of only relevant data from said event broker topic as determined by said SQL/SQL92 filtering; and

updating the data in the data unit in response to receiving said updates.

11. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein:

said associating code further comprises code for;

first prompting said user for entry of a search term to define the appropriate event broker topic required;

selecting, from among a master list of event broker topics, a set of appropriate event broker topics associated with the search term to provide to said user for selection; and

said linking code further comprises code that, responsive to a user selection to link said cell to an event broker topic, automatically displays a list of selectable event broker topics from which the user may select an appropriate event broker topic to link to the data unit.

12. The computer program product of claim 11, said associating code further comprising code for:

prompting said user for addressing information for the event broker topic; and

encapsulating a user-entered addressing information within a generated subscription message, wherein;

said issuing code issues said subscription message to an event broker identified by said user-entered addressing information; and

when said addressing information is not a correct address of an existing event broker, said computer program product further includes;

generating an error message; and

listing a selection of available event broker topics to which the user may link the data unit for said updates.

13. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein said receiving code further comprises code for:

storing characteristics associated with the update within a tracking utility, wherein said characteristics include one or more of a time stamp, a data stamp, a notation made to the data by the event source, and other relevant characteristics assigned to the update; and

enabling a display of said characteristics via selection and manipulation of said data unit.

14. A method for providing a service that enables user applications to receive dynamic updates to data units within a program application executing on the user computer when those updates occur at an event/data source across a network, said method comprising:

configuring a JMS Provider with event brokers hosting multiple topics of interest to users of the program application, wherein said JMS Provider receives published updates to data associated with each of said multiple topics from a data source;

providing, to the user, an application software that extends the features of the program application to include (1) interface options to link the data unit to a specific event broker topic, (2) an application writing component that enables programmatic writing to the data unit of the user application;

(3) and a subscriber utility with message listener functionality that processes received messages and forwards relevant data to the application writing component to programmatically update the data unit with the received data;

enabling user subscriptions to the JMS Provider as an update service, wherein a subscription message is generated at and transmitted from the user computer to the event broker with a specific topic hosted by the event broker identified therein;

forwarding to the user computer updates received on the specific topic subscribed to by the application running on the user computer, wherein said updates are provided to the user computer to complete the dynamic updates to the data unit of the application via the application writing component.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

generating a list of available topics to which the data unit of the user application may be associated; and

providing the list to a user during initial set-up of the data unit for receipt of dynamic updates, wherein the list is downloaded to the user computer when a request generated by the software utility is received, said request being generated responsive to a user selection to link the data unit to a topic for dynamic updates.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising allocating resources of said JMS Provider to an event broker operating via a publish/subscribe messaging paradigm and which supports topic specific subscriptions by a plurality of subscribers associated with data units of the application on the user computer of multiple users, such that resources are available to handle said plurality of subscribers.

17. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

responsive to a user request to register for said dynamic update service, downloading and integrating computer-readable code into the user computer, wherein the code, in combination with the program application and OS executing on the computer system is capable of performing one or more of the following steps;

associating the data unit to a topic on an event broker on a network, wherein said event broker topic receives updates to said data by an external data source;

receiving said updates from said event broker via a message transfer service of the network; and

updating the data in the data unit in response to receiving said updates;

wherein said associating step includes;

opening a menu with an option to link said data unit to an event broker topic responsive to a user selection within said data unit; and

linking said data unit to a particular user-selected event broker topic when said user selects said event broker topic to associate with said data unit;

responsive to a user selection to link said cell to an event broker topic, automatically displaying a list of selectable event broker topics from which the user may select an appropriate event broker topic to link to the data unit;

filtering said event broker topic, wherein said filtering parses an event broker topic using SQL/SQL92 for specific information desired by said subscriber; and

receiving updates of only relevant data from said event broker topic as determined by said SQL/SQL92 filtering; and

activating said message listener when an update is available, wherein said message listener processes said message to determine which data unit said update is associated with, wherein multiple subscribers associated with multiple data units may be assigned a single message listener and said message listener maintains a table of topics-to-data unit pairings;

forwarding said update and an identifier of the associated data unit to an application writing utility, which completes said programmatic writing of said update to said data unit;

determining a write-to characteristic of the program application with the data unit; and

activating a specific writing utility capable of programmatically updating said data unit of the program application, wherein each program application may require a particular one of multiple available writing utilities to update a data unit of that program application.

18. A system for enabling dynamic, real-time data update service for data within user applications, said system comprising:

an event broker application running on a server on a network that is accessible to a plurality of client computers and supports a publish/subscribe messaging protocol;

a central data source that supplies real-time data to said event broker; and

a customer computer running an application that requires updates to data within particular user-selectable data units; and

a dynamic data update utility (DDUU) executing on the customer computer that enables a selected data unit of said executing application to be registered/subscribed with said event broker application to receive said real-time updates, wherein said real-time updates are programmatically written to the data unit by an application writing utility.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising:

a software utility executing on said customer computer system and associated with said executing application that enables a user of said executing application to select which of a plurality of selectable cells of the executing application to link to a selected event broker topic; and

means associated with the software utility for downloading a list of all available event broker topics in response to the user selecting to link the cell.