Declarative computer programming language method and system

• US 7,836,428 B2
• Filed: 03/15/2005
• Issued: 11/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: III Holdings 3, LLC
• Original Assignee: Bungee Labs, Inc.
• Inventors: Mitchell, David C., Mitchell, Bruce P., Mitchell, Dale K., Hamilton, Scott E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Zhen; Wei Y
• Assistant Examiner(s): Brophy; Matthew J
• Application Number:
  US11/082,204
• Publication Number:
  US 20050203958A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,072 Days
• Field of Search: 717/100, 717/117
• US Class Current: 717/117
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/315 Object-oriented languages
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4492 Inheritance

Abstract

A method and system for instructing a computer in a system of a declarative computer programming language. Unlike traditional declarative languages, the programming language may be neither relational nor functional, neither procedural nor imperative. The declarative elements may be defined as a meta-description of logic and data. The basic morphology of this meta-description may be a data construct known as a Lattice. Lattices derive declarative power from their inclusion of “Attributes” and “Sites”. Attributes are declarative properties that determine the internal behavior of a Lattice; while Sites are declarative data access points that establish the external relationship a Lattice may have with other Lattices, Lattice Containers, and Lattice Elements. Each of these data constructs are highly adaptable, recursive, and expandable, providing the entire language with a degree of flexibility that facilitates a very high level of abstraction.

Claims

1. A computer readable storage device having computer readable program instructions embodied thereon for programming a processor, said instructions consisting of:

a computer software application manifesting an entirely declarative system for creating a software program comprising properties for declaratively establishing relationships between data elements, said relationships comprising descriptions of logic and data,

wherein said entirely declarative system comprises one or more declarative lattice structures, each respective lattice having a plurality of configurable constructs comprising;

(i) one or more declarative attributes, each attribute configurable to select an internal behavior of said respective lattice;

(ii) one or more declarative data access sites, each site configurable to define respective data access points for accessing lattices external to said respective lattice, and

wherein said attributes and data access sites configure each said respective lattice to complete a singular computing task, and each respective lattice is configured to instantiate and execute, either alone or in relation to other lattices of said declarative system.

2. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein said one or more sites define said respective data access points for programming structures internal to said respective declarative lattice structure.

3. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein said one or more sites are extensible.

4. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein each respective declarative lattice structure further comprises one or more logic elements providing a plurality of available behaviors selectable by said one or more attributes.

5. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein said declarative lattice structures comprise a container structure having one or more declarative elements nested therein, wherein said container structure is configured to execute said one or more programming elements within a container context.

6. The computer readable storage device of claim 5, wherein said container structure comprises one or more variables accessible within said container context.

7. The computer readable storage device of claim 6, wherein said one or more programming elements comprise one or more nested container structures.

8. The computer readable storage device of claim 6, wherein said one or more programming elements comprise a declarative primitive.

9. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein said one or more declarative lattice structures comprises an assignment structure comprising a first site and a second site associated with an assignment operator.

10. The computer readable storage device of claim 9, wherein said assignment structure further comprises a configurable copy attribute to select from an assignment by reference and an assignment by copy.

11. The computer readable storage device of claim 10, wherein said assignment by copy comprises an assignment by reference to a complex data structure with a copy of a top level object of said complex data structure.

12. The computer readable storage device of claim 10, wherein said assignment by copy comprises an assignment of a recursive copy of designated data of a complex data type.

13. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein said one or more declarative lattice structures comprises a call function structure having one or more sites which act as input/output parameters.

14. The computer readable storage device of claim 13, wherein said call function structure is called by non-declarative program code.

15. The computer readable storage device of claim 13, wherein said call function structure is called by one of said one or more declarative lattice structures.

16. The computer readable storage device of claim 13, wherein said call function structure comprises a call to a non-declarative function.

17. The computer readable storage device of claim 16, wherein said call to said non-declarative function comprises a call to an underlying system.

18. The computer readable storage device of claim 16, wherein said call to said non-declarative function comprises a call to legacy program code.

19. The computer readable storage device of claim 16, wherein said call to said non-declarative function comprises a call to an external procedure.

20. The computer readable storage device of claim 19, wherein said external procedure is external to a computer system in which said computer readable program code is executed.

21. The computer readable storage device of claim 1:

wherein said one or more declarative lattice structures comprise a conditional structure having one or more conditional elements, each of said one or more conditional elements comprising a conditional expression and an associated container structure having one or more programming elements nested therein;

wherein said conditional structure is configured to execute said associated container structure when said conditional expression is true.

22. The computer readable storage device of claim 21, wherein said conditional structure comprises a default behavior configured to execute when no conditional expression is true.

23. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein said one or more declarative lattice structures comprises a dialog structure configured to generate a dialog interface.

24. The computer readable storage device of claim 23, wherein said dialog structure implements a halt in execution of said one or more declarative lattice structures.

25. The computer readable storage device of claim 24, wherein said dialog structure is associated with logic code for resuming said execution of said one or more declarative lattice structures.

26. The computer readable storage device of claim 24, wherein said dialog structure is associated with computer code for tracking a data state related to said one or more declarative lattice structures during said halt in said execution.

27. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein said one or more declarative lattice structures comprises an iterator structure configurable to execute a contained declarative lattice structure a plurality of times.

28. The computer readable storage device of claim 27, wherein one of said attributes associated with said iterator structure comprises a value corresponding to a length of a collection.

29. The computer readable storage device of claim 27, wherein said iterator structure comprises one of said sites configurable to provide access to a collection of data.

30. The computer readable storage device of claim 27, wherein said iterator structure comprises an expression that determines an iterative behavior of said iterator structure.

31. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein said one or more declarative program structures are extensible.

32. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein said one or more declarative lattice structures comprises a message structure configurable to cause a message box to be displayed.

33. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein said one or more declarative lattice structures comprises a message structure configurable to log output.

34. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein said one or more declarative lattice structures comprises an exception structure configurable to detect an exception condition and throw an exception for processing by another declarative lattice structure.

35. The computer readable storage device of claim 34, further comprising one or more exception handlers nested within a hierarchy of declarative container structures, wherein one or more of said container structures are configured to pass said exception and an associated execution context state to a next higher container context in said hierarchy.

36. The computer readable storage device of claim 35, wherein said one or more exception handlers are configured to throw into said associated execution state to resume execution.

37. The computer readable storage device of claim 35, further comprising a function structure, wherein said function structure is configured to propagate said exception back to a declarative call function structure providing a current calling context for said function structure.

38. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein said one or more declarative lattice structures comprises a sorting structure configurable to sort a collection of data, wherein one or more of said attributes determine a sort behavior from a plurality of available sort behaviors, and wherein one of said sites is configurable to access said collection of data.

39. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, configured to execute on an underlying system that supports said plurality of declarative lattice structures during runtime.

40. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, further comprising a plurality of declarative meta-structures corresponding respectively to a plurality of declarative lattice structure types, wherein said plurality of declarative meta-structures support one or more factory methods for generating runtime instances of said declarative lattice structure types.

41. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein said one or more attributes comprise an attribute primitive.

42. The computer readable storage device of claim 41, wherein said attribute primitive comprises an attribute primitive type from the set of primitive types including:

string;

binary blobs;

numeric;

date;

time;

date and time;

enumerated;

Boolean; and

integer.

43. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein said one or more attributes comprises an attribute object.

44. The computer readable storage device of claim 43, wherein said attribute object comprises an attribute container having one or more additional attributes nested therein.

45. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein one or more of said attributes are recursive.

46. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein one or more of said attributes comprises one or more attribute sites.

69. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein said computer software application manifesting said declarative programming system comprises an Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

70. The computer software application of claim 69, wherein said Integrated Development Environment (IDE) comprises comprehensive facilities and capabilities for creating computer software applications.

71. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein said computer software application manifesting said declarative programming system comprises an independent plug-in for an Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

72. The computer readable storage device of claim 1, wherein said sites comprise data access points for non-declarative programming structures and systems.

47. A method for programming an entirely declarative language program manifesting an entirely declarative system for creating a computer software program, using a computer programming interface, the method comprising:

providing a library of declarative elements consisting of descriptions of logic and data in predefined declarative lattice structures configured to instantiate and execute, either alone or in relation to other declarative lattice structures of said declarative language program, wherein each of said declarative lattice structures has one or more configurable meta data properties from the set of properties comprising attributes and sites;

obtaining a container programming structure from said library;

selecting a logical behavior associated with said container programming structure by setting one or more attributes of said container programming structure;

nesting one or more declarative elements within said container programming structure for sequential execution within a context of said container programming structure;

selecting a declarative structure type for one or more of said declarative elements, said declarative structure type determining a range of logical behaviors available to a respective declarative lattice structure; and

selecting respective logical behaviors of said one or more declarative elements by setting one or more attributes of said one or more declarative elements.

48. The method of claim 47 further comprising selecting an access behavior for one or more sites on one or more of said declarative elements by setting one or more associated site attributes.

49. The method of claim 48, wherein at least one of said one or more declarative lattice structures comprises a second container programming structure, said method further comprising:

nesting one or more additional declarative elements within said second container programming structure for sequential execution within a context of said second container programming structure.

50. The method of claim 49, further comprising:

configuring one of said one or more additional declarative elements to support interrupting and resuming said sequential execution.

51. The method of claim 48 further comprising associating said one or more sites with one or more variables in said context of said container programming structure.

52. The method of claim 47, wherein said computer programming interface is a graphical user interface (GUI), said method further comprising:

providing a graphical representation of said container programming structure;

providing graphical selection elements associated with said one or more attributes of said container programming element and with said one or more attributes of said one or more declarative elements; and

presenting graphical representations of said one or more declarative programming elements within a visual border of said container programming structure.

53. The method of claim 52, further comprising:

providing one or more type selection elements associated with each of said one or more declarative elements.

54. The method of claim 47, wherein said computer programming interface comprises a textual interface, said method further comprising:

providing a textual representation of said container programming structure;

expressing said one or more attributes of said container programming structure in association with said textual representation of said container programming structure;

providing one or more textual representations of respective declarative programming elements; and

expressing said one or more attributes of said one or more declarative programming elements in association with the respective textual representation of the respective declarative programming element.

55. The method of claim 54, wherein said textual representations are presented in a computer language grammar.

56. The method of claim 47, further comprising:

instantiating a meta-data container object associated with said container programming structure;

wherein setting said one or more attributes of said container programming structure comprises setting one or more respective data values within said meta-data container object.

57. The method of claim 56, further comprising:

calling a factory method of said meta-data container object to obtain a container object implementing said container programming element.

58. The method of claim 56, further comprising:

said meta-data container object implementing said container programming element during execution of said declarative language program.

59. The method of claim 47, further comprising:

obtaining a new declarative element type.

60. The method of claim 59, wherein obtaining a new declarative programming element type comprises:

extending an existing declarative element type.

61. The method of claim 59, wherein obtaining a new declarative element type comprises:

defining a new logical behavior; and

associating one or more declarative properties with said new logical behavior.

62. The method of claim 61, wherein associating one or more declarative properties comprises:

defining one or more data points associated with said new logical behavior; and

assigning one or more sites to said data points.

63. The method of claim 61, wherein associating one or more declarative properties comprises:

defining one or more control points for said new logical behavior; and

assigning one or more attributes to said one or more control points.

64. The method of claim 47, wherein said declarative programming elements represent a fifth generation programming language (5GL).

65. The method of claim 47, wherein said one or more of said declarative programming elements are nested to implement a logic flow that captures one or more programming constructs from one or more third generation languages (3GLs) and one or more fourth generation languages (4GLs).

66. The method of claim 47, further comprising:

for one or more of said attributes and said sites, predefining a finite range of valid values that are consistent with runtime execution, such that a language grammar of said programming declarative elements is self-validating.

67. The method of claim 47, further comprising:

setting one or more runtime validation attributes on one or more of said declarative programming elements to throw an exception if an invalid assignment occurs at runtime.

68. The method of claim 47, further comprising:

said one or more declarative elements transforming into an executable construct.

73. The method of claim 48 wherein said sites comprise data access points for non-declarative programming structures and systems.