Text object compilation method and system

• US 6,202,201 B1
• Filed: 09/23/1998
• Issued: 03/13/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 09/23/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: NetCreate Systems, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Domi, Dwayne K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Chaki, Kakali
• Application Number:
  US09/159,304
• Time in Patent Office: 902 Days
• Field of Search: 717/5, 717/7, 717/8, 707/513, 707/516, 707/522, 707/523, 707/524, 707/525, 704/1-9
• US Class Current: 717/136
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/425 Lexical analysis

Abstract

A Text Object Compiler and Language able to produce binary and text objects that are not machine language code. An object oriented computer language that produces target files of information in any text or binary format; files are defined by the programmer as “pages” and file locations are defined by the programmer as “targets.” The compiler compiles the language to produce any variety of output, which include text formats (such as HTML, SGML, and other scripting languages) and binary formats (such as graphical pictures, binary data, or other multimedia information).

Claims

1. A computer comprising:

a lexical analyzer that tokenizes a source input to produce tokens representing regular expressions of the source input;

a parser that determines relationships between the tokens;

a page generator that evaluates the tokens and the relationships between the tokens to generate an output, the output being a target document.

2. The computer of claim 1 wherein the page generator writes the output as a file.

3. The computer of claim 2 wherein the page generator writes the file at a target location specified within the source input.

4. The computer of claim 2 wherein the target document is a web page.

5. The computer of claim 2 wherein the target document is a graphics file.

6. The computer of claim 2 wherein the target document is an HTML document.

7. The computer of claim 1 wherein the regular expressions include variables.

8. The computer of claim 1 wherein the regular expressions include functions.

9. The computer of claim 1 wherein the regular expressions include classes.

10. The computer of claim 1 wherein the regular expressions include variables, functions, and classes.

14. The method of claim 9 wherein the target document is a web page.

15. The method of claim 9 wherein the target document is a graphics file.

16. The method of claim 9 wherein the target document is an HTML document.

23. The method of claim 16 wherein the non-executable files include a web page.

24. The method of claim 16 wherein the non-executable files include a graphics file.

25. The method of claim 16 wherein the non-executable files include an HTML document.

42. The computer of claim 2 wherein the target document is an SGML document.

43. The method of claim 9 wherein the target document is an SGML document.

44. The method of claim 16 wherein the non-executable files include an SGML document.

47. The computer of claim 2 wherein the target document is a multimedia file.

48. The method of claim 9 wherein the target document is a multimedia file.

49. The method of claim 16 wherein the non-executable files include a multimedia file.

11. A method of operating a computer system to compile a Text Object Language comprising:

lexically analyzing a source input to produce tokens representing regular expressions of the source input;

parsing the tokens to determine relationships between the tokens;

evaluating the tokens and the relationships between the tokens to generate a target document.

12. A method of claim 11 further comprising:

writing the target document to a file.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the file is written at a target location specified within the source file.

17. The method of claim 11 wherein the regular expressions include variables.

18. The method of claim 11 wherein the regular expressions include functions.

19. The method of claim 11 wherein the regular expressions include classes.

20. The method of claim 11 wherein the regular expressions include variables, functions, and classes.

21. The method of operating a computer system to compile a Text Object Language comprising:

reading a source input containing regular expressions of the Text Object Language, wherein the regular expressions of the text object language include variables, functions, and page definitions;

lexically analyzing the source input to produce tokens of the regular expressions, wherein the tokens include page tokens;

parsing the tokens to determine relationships between the tokens;

constructing a representation of the tokens and their relationships in computer memory;

evaluating the tokens that represent variables and functions to determine their evaluated values;

replacing the computer memory representation of the variable tokens and the function tokens with their evaluated values;

writing non-executable files based on the computer memory representation of the page tokens.

22. The method of claim 21 wherein the non-executable files are written in a target location specified by the source input.

26. A method of claim 21 wherein the regular expressions include classes.

27. A computer-readable medium encoded with data and instructions that when read by a computer, the computer executes processes comprising:

lexically analyzing a source input to produce tokens representing regular expressions of the source input;

parsing the tokens to determine relationships between the tokens;

evaluating the tokens and the relationships between the tokens to generate a target document output.

28. The computer-readable medium of claim 27, wherein the instructions when read by a computer, the computer executes processes further comprising:

writing the target document to a file.

29. The computer-readable medium of claim 28, wherein the file is written at a target location specified within the source input.

30. The computer-readable medium of claim 29, wherein the regular expressions include variables.

31. The computer-readable medium of claim 30, wherein the regular expressions include functions.

32. The computer-readable medium of claim 31, wherein the regular expressions include classes.

33. The computer-readable medium of claim 28, wherein the target document is a web-page.

34. The computer-readable medium of claim 28, wherein the target document is a graphics file.

35. The computer-readable medium of claim 28, wherein the target document is an HTML document.

45. The computer-readable medium of claim 28, wherein the target document is an SGML document.

50. The computer-readable medium of claim 28, wherein the target document is a multimedia file.

36. A computer-readable medium encoded with data and instructions that when read by a computer, the computer executes processes comprising:

reading a source input containing regular expressions of a Text Object Language, wherein the regular expressions of the text object language include variables, functions, and page definitions;

lexically analyzing the source input to produce tokens of the regular expressions, the tokens including page tokens;

parsing the tokens to determine relationships between the tokens;

constructing a representation of the tokens and their relationships in computer memory;

evaluating the tokens that represent variables and functions to determine their evaluated values;

replacing the computer memory representation of the variable tokens and the function tokens with their evaluated values;

writing non-executable files based on the computer memory representation of the page tokens.

37. The computer-readable medium of claim 36, wherein the file is written at a target location specified within the source input.

38. The computer-readable medium of claim 37, wherein the target document is a web-page.

39. The computer-readable medium of claim 37, wherein the target document is a graphics file.

40. The computer-readable medium of claim 37, wherein the target document is an HTML document.

41. The computer-readable medium of claim 37, wherein the target document is an SGML document.

46. The computer-readable medium of claim 37, wherein the target document is a multimedia file.