ENCODING/DECODING WHILE ALLOWING VARYING MESSAGE FORMATS PER MESSAGE

• US 20090234971A1
• Filed: 03/14/2008
• Published: 09/17/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Rangachari, Krishnan R., Osovetsky, Evgeny, Jethanandani, Natasha H., Vishwanath, Tirunelveli R., Maine, Stephen Jared
• Granted Patent: US 8,145,794 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/246
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/6418 Hybrid transport
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

Encoding and/or decoding of messages. On the encoding end, a composite encoder encodes message from an internal format that is used by internal system components into an external format. However, the composite encoder may encode the outgoing messages into different external formats on a per-message basis. For incoming message, a composite decoder decodes incoming messages from any one of a plurality of external formats into the internal format also on a per-message basis. A per-message report mechanism permits internal system components and the encoding/decoding components to communicate information regarding the encoding or decoding on a per message basis. This permits a higher level of collaboration and complexity in the encoding and decoding process.

Claims

1. A computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable media having thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing system, causes the computing system to instantiate the following:

a composite encoder configured to encode messages from an internal format to a plurality of different external formats on a per-message basis, the internal format being processable by one or more internal system components; and

a per-message encoding report mechanism to which at least one of the one or more internal system components is capable if writing encoding informing to on a per message basis, the per-message encoding report mechanism being accessible by the composite encoder so as to use the encoding information to select an appropriate external format into which to encode a corresponding outgoing message.

2. A computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein the one or more computer-readable media are physical memory and/or storage media.

3. A computer program product in accordance with claim 2, wherein the one or more computer-executable instructions, when executed by the one or more processors of the computing system, further cause the computing system to instantiate the following:

the at least one of the one or more internal system components.

4. A computer program product in accordance with claim 3, wherein the at least one of the one or more internal system components comprises:

a programming component that permits a programmer to select an encoding format corresponding to a particular message.

5. A computer program product in accordance with claim 3, wherein the at least one of the one or more internal system components comprises:

a programming component that permits a programmer to select a decoding format corresponding to a response to a particular message.

6. A computer program product in accordance with claim 2, wherein the internal format comprises eXtensible Markup Language (XML) or Infoset format.

7. A computer program product in accordance with claim 2, wherein the plurality of external formats includes at least binary, XML and at least one other message format.

8. A computer program product in accordance with claim 2, wherein the composite encoder may manage a plurality of constituent encoder components, each capable of encoding to a corresponding external format.

9. A computer program product in accordance with claim 8, wherein the composite encoder/decoder has associated therewith a selection mechanism that selects, on a per message basis, a constituent encoder to use when encoding or decoding a corresponding message.

10. A computer program product in accordance with claim 9, wherein the selection mechanism is configured to use a content type corresponding to the message to identify the constituent encoder to use.

11. A computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable media having thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing system, causes the computing system to instantiate the following:

a composite decoder configured to decode messages from any one of a plurality of external formats into an internal format on a per-message basis, the internal format being processable by one or more internal system components; and

a per-message decoding report mechanism to which the composite decoder may write information regarding the decoding, or from which the composite decoder may read information regarding the decoding, wherein at least one of the one or more internal system components is capable of also reading the decoding information.

12. A computer program product in accordance with claim 11, wherein the one or more computer-readable media are physical memory and/or storage media.

13. A computer program product in accordance with claim 12, wherein processing performed by the at least one of the one or more internal system components may perform format-dependent processing on an incoming message depending on the information regarding the decoding for that incoming message that is written into the per-message decoding report mechanism.

14. A computer program product in accordance with claim 13, wherein the format-dependent processing comprises validation of the incoming message depending on whether the external format of the incoming message was a particular external format.

15. A computer program product in accordance with claim 13, wherein the format-dependent processing is followed by exposing at least a derivative of the incoming message in a format-independent way to yet one or more additional internal system components.

16. A computer program product in accordance with claim 15, wherein the yet one or more additional internal system components comprises a programming component.

17. A computer program product in accordance with claim 12, wherein the composite decoder is configured to automatically detect an external format of an incoming message using an automatic detection process.

18. A computer program product in accordance with claim 17, wherein the automatic detection process is configurable.

19. A computer program product in accordance with claim 17, wherein the automatic detection process receives a content type of the incoming message as input.

20. A computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable media having thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing system, causes the computing system to instantiate the following:

a composite encoder/decoder component configured to encode messages from an internal format a plurality of different external formats on a per-message basis, and configured to decode messages from any one of a plurality of external formats into an internal format on a per-message basis, the internal format being processable by one or more internal system components, the composite encoder/decoder component configured to manage a plurality of constituent encoder/decoder components, each capable of encoding to a corresponding external format and decoding from the corresponding external format; and

a per-message report mechanism to which at least one of the one or more internal system components is capable if writing encoding or decoding informing to on a per message basis, the per-message report mechanism being accessible by the composite encoder/decoder so as to use the encoding information to select an appropriate external format into which to encode a corresponding outgoing message, the per-message report mechanism being writable to by the composite encoder/decoder component.