User-defined type consistency checker

• US 20060225026A1
• Filed: 04/01/2005
• Published: 10/05/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/01/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sezgin, Beysim, Venkatesh, Ramachandran, Henaire, Mathieu
• Granted Patent: US 7,650,346 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2365 Ensuring data consistency and integrity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24565 Triggers; Constraints
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/40 Authorisation, e.g. identification of payer or payee, verification of customer or shop credentials; Review and approval of payers, e.g. check credit lines or negative lists

Abstract

A system that facilitates checking the consistency of a user-defined data type in relation to a database environment. The invention can employ a user-defined type (UDT) storage format whereby values can be self-describing, including the runtime type of the value. The invention can take the type definition that is persisted in the metadata catalogs as a streaming input and generate a type-specific state machine thereafter. At every point in the checking process, the type-specific state machine can be aware of the next data type that is to be encountered in the check. Whenever an embedded UDT is encountered, the current type-specific state machine can be suspended and saved. The embedded UDT can be checked before proceeding. In this way, the complex check can be effected using memory space proportional to the number of levels in the UDT as opposed to the number of bytes in the object.

Claims

1. A system that checks consistency of data values, comprising:

a first component that receives a type definition of an incoming data value that is persisted in a metadata catalog; and

a second component that identifies an embedded user-defined type (UDT) value and checks the consistency of the embedded UDT value.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a component that generates a type-specific state machine based at least in part on the received type definition, the type-specific state machine identifies the embedded UDT value.

3. The system of claim 2, further comprising an artificial intelligence component that that facilitates generating the type-specific state machine as a function of a data source.

4. The system of claim 2, the type-specific state machine is suspended and saved upon identification of the embedded UDT value.

5. The system of claim 2, the type-specific state machine determines a next data type to be checked.

6. The system of claim 5, the next data type is checked before proceeding.

7. The system of claim 1, the incoming data value is part of a streaming input, wherein data values in the streaming input are assessed upon arrival.

8. The system of claim 1, the incoming data value is received from at least one of a remote procedure call, conversion from a disparate type, a distributed query and a database consistency checking tool.

9. A computer readable medium having stored thereon the components of claim 1.

10. A method of verifying consistency of UDT data, comprising:

receiving an incoming data value from a data source;

identifying a type definition that corresponds to the incoming data value;

generating a type-specific state machine based at least in part on one or more identified type definitions;

identifying an embedded UDT structure; and

verifying consistency of the embedded UDT structure.

11. The method of claim 10, the act of identifying the type definition comprises analyzing metadata associated with the incoming data value.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising determining whether the received UDT structure is a corrupt value.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising identifying a next data type that is encountered in the act of verifying.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising generating intermediate code that verifies the consistency of the embedded UDT structure.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising generating new code from the intermediate code despite inconsistencies between a run-time data type and a declared data type for a specific received value.

16. The method of claim 10, further comprising employing an optimization technique that identifies a predetermined number of previously encountered data types from the data source.

17. The method of claim 10, further comprising suspending and saving the state machine identification of the embedded UDT structure.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising resuming the state machine in response to the act of verifying the consistency of the embedded UDT structure.

19. A system that facilitates analyzing consistency of a UDT value, comprising:

means for receiving an incoming data element from a source;

means for analyzing metadata associated with the incoming data element;

means for identifying a type definition that corresponds to the incoming data element;

means for generating a type-specific state machine based at least in part on one or more identified type definitions;

means for identifying an embedded UDT structure; and

means for verifying consistency of the embedded UDT structure.

20. The system of claim 19, further comprising means for generating an intermediate code that facilitates the means for verifying the consistency of the embedded UDT by utilizing a defined type with respect to structure.