SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CREATING DYNAMIC FOLDER HIERARCHIES

• US 20080154866A1
• Filed: 03/07/2008
• Published: 06/26/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ServiceNow Incorporated
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: BEYER, KEVIN SCOTT, Li, Ning, Hsiao, Hui-I, Hui, Joshua Wai-Ho
• Granted Patent: US 8,117,535 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/10 File systems; File servers

Abstract

A dynamic foldering system automatically manages the creation and deletion of run-time dynamic folders and selection of documents, items, or object graphs found in the run-time dynamic folders. The system comprises a query/predicate for a design-time folder group based on which dynamic folders are automatically managed, a variable binding mechanism, automatic identifications of dynamic folders containing a particular object, parallel navigation, and customized combination of foldering results. The dynamic folder hierarchy is defined by a hierarchy of design-time folder groups defined by a query/predicate on a document comprising structured or semi-structured data. Modifiable criteria for creating the dynamic folder hierarchy are provided by the user. Variable binding provides powerful query/predicate definitions on hierarchical data or graph-structured data. Given a document, the system automatically identifies which dynamic folders contain the document.

Claims

1-35. -35. (canceled)

36. A system for creating a dynamic folder hierarchy, comprising:

a network;

a host server connected to said network via a communications link; and

a computer in communication with said network wherein said computer including a processor capable of executing the instructions comprising;

creating a design-time folder group definition specifying an organization of a hierarchy of design-time folder groups with each design-time folder group consisting of a plurality of design-time folders arranged in parent/child relationships, said definition including a set of variable binding expressions for associating a plurality of documents with a plurality of dynamic folders;

generating a query with predicates from said set of variable binding expressions;

searching a collection of documents to identify documents which match said query, each of said documents in said collection of documents containing self-describing data;

dynamically creating a hierarchy of dynamic folders including child dynamic folders within said hierarchy of design-time folder groups by using a combination of said design-time folder groups definition and said identified documents; and

associating each of said identified documents with at least one dynamic folder in said hierarchy of dynamic folders.

37. The system of claim 36, wherein said document containing self-describing data comprises any one of an XML document, an object graph, or metadata.

38. The system of claim 36, further comprising generating additional dynamic folder hierarchies, each of which associates a collection of documents wherein overlapping occurs between said dynamic folder hierarchies.

39. The system of claim 36, wherein said self-describing data format comprises descriptive data used to dynamically organize documents within said dynamic folder hierarchy.

40. The system of claim 36, further comprising a user retrieving at least one document from said hierarchy of dynamic folders by executing a query which intersects a predicate of one dynamic folder and at least one of the predicates of a parent folder of said dynamic folder.

41. The system of claim 36, further comprising incorporating external parameter bindings into said design-time folder group definitions.

42. The system of claim 36, further comprising retrieving at least one document from said hierarchy of dynamic folders by executing a query which intersects a predicate of one dynamic folder and the predicate of at least one parent folder of said one dynamic folder.

43. A computer program product for creating a dynamic folder hierarchy, said computer program product comprising:

a computer readable medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instructions for execution by said processing circuit for performing a method comprising;

creating a design-time folder group definition specifying an organization of a hierarchy of design-time folder groups with each design-time folder group consisting of a plurality of design-time folders arranged in parent/child relationships, said definition including a set of variable binding expressions for associating a plurality of documents with a plurality of dynamic folders;

generating a query with predicates from said set of variable binding expressions;

searching a collection of documents to identify documents which match said query, each of said documents in said collection of documents containing self-describing data;

dynamically creating a hierarchy of dynamic folders including child dynamic folders within said hierarchy of design-time folder groups by using a combination of said design-time folder groups definition and said identified documents; and

associating each of said identified documents with at least one dynamic folder in said hierarchy of dynamic folders.

44. The computer program product of claim 43, wherein said document containing self-describing data comprises any one of an XML document, an object graph, or metadata.

45. The computer program product of claim 43, further comprising generating additional dynamic folder hierarchies, each of which associates a collection of documents wherein overlapping occurs between said dynamic folder hierarchies.

46. The computer program product of claim 43, further comprising a user retrieving at least one document from said hierarchy of dynamic folders by executing a query which intersects a predicate of one dynamic folder and at least one predicate of a parent folder of said one dynamic folder.

47. The computer program product of claim 43, further comprising incorporating external parameter bindings into said design-time folder group definitions.

48. The computer program product of claim 43, wherein said self-describing data format comprises descriptive data used to dynamically organize documents within said dynamic folder hierarchy.

49. The computer program product of claim 43, further comprising retrieving a set of documents matching a user defined query wherein said retrieval follows a conventional foldering path.

50. The computer program product of claim 43, further comprising incorporating external parameter bindings into said design-time folder group definitions.

51. The computer program product of claim 43, further comprising creating materialized query tables to pre-compute search results for dynamic folders that are frequently accessed by a user.