Pluggable formatters

• US 7,475,082 B1
• Filed: 01/31/2005
• Issued: 01/06/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Kakivaya, Gopala Krishna R., de Jong, Stephen Peter, Roxe, Joseph L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Pardo; Thuy N
• Application Number:
  US11/046,997
• Time in Patent Office: 1,436 Days
• Field of Search: 707/101, 707/102, 707/103.R, 707/104.1, 717/107, 717/166, 717/109, 719/318, 345/765
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/465 Distributed object oriented systems remote method invocation [RMI] G06F9/548
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/541 via adapters, e.g. between incompatible applications
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/955 Object-oriented
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A system and method is provided for facilitating employment of pluggable formatters by providing a variety of functions or services outside the formatter for handling various functions associated with conventional formatters. The services can be employed to provide the basic functionality associated with serializing and deserializing graphs of objects. The present invention provides facilities which support the plugging in or functionality of formatters in any given wire format for transferring across a connection or between processes.

Claims

1. A system for serialization and deserialization of an object that facilitates employment of a pluggable formatter, comprising:

a decision module that retrieves an object from a graph of objects and determines a serialization format for the object based on user defined rules for that object type, the decision module populating a data structure based on the user defined rules and providing the pluggable formatter with the data structure, so that the pluggable formatter can serialize the data structure to a serialized stream in an externalized format defined by the pluggable formatter;

a serialization selector that selects between one of a user defined rule set defined in the object, a user defined rule set defined in another object and a default rule set for determining a serialization format for the object;

a formatter services component that receives a serialized stream of the object and instantiate an object type for deserialization of the decoded serialized stream; and

an object manager that manages the deserialization of objects by the pluggable formatter, the pluggable formatter providing the object manager with a decoded serialized stream;

wherein a processor operatively coupled to memory retains the decision module, the serialization selector, the formatter services component, and the object manager.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a serialization binder component that determines the object type to instantiate, the object type being one of a similar type of the object being deserialized, a different type and the same type in a different assembly.

3. The system of claim 1, the object manager tracks forward references to additional objects down the stream and call a callback component so that fixups to the objects can be performed upon receipt of the additional objects.

4. The system of claim 1, the object manager handles remoting procedures.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising an object ID generator coupled to the decision module, the object ID generator assigns a unique object ID to each object in the graph.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising a remoting component for providing the pluggable formatter with remoting information, the remoting component being a user defined rule set located in another object, such that the pluggable formatter receives one of an object, a remote object and an object reference for serializing in an externalized format, the pluggable formatter being without additional functionality for handling the differences between an object, a remote object and an object reference.

7. A method for serialization of a graph of objects into a stream, the method comprising:

retrieving an object from the graph of objects;

assigning the object a unique identification number;

receiving a serial stream of the object;

instantiating an object type for deserialization of the decoded serialized stream;

selecting a serialization rule set based on the object type from one of a user defined rule set in the object, a user defined rule set in another object and a default rule set;

pushing the object to a data structure and populating the data structure based on the selected serialization rule set; and

serializing the data structure to an externalized format defined by a pluggable formatter.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising retrieving, assigning, selecting, pushing and serializing of each object in a graph of objects.

9. The method of claim 8, the pushing the object to a data structure and populating the data structure based on the selected serialization rule set being repeated for each object in the graph of objects prior to serializing the data structure to an externalized format defined by a pluggable formatter.

10. The method of claim 8, the pushing the object to a data structure and populating the data structure based on the selected serialization rule set and serializing the data structure to an externalized format defined by a pluggable formatter being repeated for each object in the graph of objects one at a time.

11. A computer readable storage medium having computer executable components comprising:

a pluggable formatter component programmed to receive a data structure being populated with serialization information of an object of a graph of objects and serialize the object to an externalized format;

a decision component programmed to retrieve an object and invoke a serialization selection component, the serialization selection component determining serialization information on the object, the serialization information being user definable in the object through one of methods defined in a serializable class, methods defined in a surrogate class provide by the user and markings provided in the object invoking a default serialization format;

a formatter services component that receives the serialized stream of the object and instantiate an object type for deserialization of the serialized stream; and

an object manager component programmed to manage the deserialization of objects by the pluggable formatter component.

12. The computer readable medium of claim 11, further comprising an object ID generator component programmed to assign a unique object ID to each object in the graph.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 11, the pluggable formatter being programmed to receive a serialized stream and decode the serialized stream.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 13, further comprising:

a serialization binder component that determines the object type to instantiate.

15. The computer readable medium of claim 14, the object type being one of a similar type of the object being deserialized, a different type and the same type in a different assembly;

and the object manager component being programmed to track forward references to additional objects of the graph of objects down the stream and call a callback component programmed to perform fixups to the objects upon receipt of the additional objects.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 11, the pluggable formatter component comprising:

a conversion component programmed to convert the data structure into the external format and decode an object in a serialized stream in the external format;

an object writer programmed to pull object information from the conversion component and push the information to a format writer writing the encoded stream;

a format parser programmed to read object information from an encoded stream and push the object information to an object reader, the object reader registering the object with the object manager; and

an object information wrapper programmed to handle remoting information.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 11, the externalized format being XML.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 11, the externalized format being binary.