Message announcements
AssigneeBritish Telecommunications public limited company
InventorsRobert Briscoe, Andrea Soppera
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An announcement thread addressing format which comprises a first sub-part concatenated with a second sub-part is described. The first sub-part is preferably the address of the party which generates the addressing identifier, whereas the second sub-part may be random data. An announcer apparatus may then use these address formats by including only those parts of an announcement thread address which render the address unique within the particular index message in which it is to be included, but not necessarily globally unique.
Claims33
An announcement method for use in a publish-subscribe architecture, the method comprising:
- compiling an index message containing a plurality of sequence identifiers respectively identifying a plurality of sequences of messages, each message in each sequence relating to substantially the same subject matter;
- and transmitting the compiled index message onto an index channel;
- the method being characterised in that the sequence identifiers comprise at least two sub-parts, and the compiling step further comprises, for any sequence identifier to be included within the index message, including within the index message only those sub-parts of a sequence identifier which are necessary to uniquely identify the sequence identifier from the other sequence identifiers included within the message.
A method of allocating a sequence identifier to a sequence of messages relating to substantially the same subject matter and which are to be transmit onto one or more communications channels, the method comprising:
- generating a first sub-part of a sequence identifier part, the first sub-part being semantically meaningless when considered alone;
- combining the generated first sub-part of the identifier with a second, meaningful, sequence identifier sub-part to provide the sequence identifier;
- and
- allocating the sequence identifier to the sequence of messages;
- wherein the first sequence identifier sub-part is generated such that when combined with the second sequence identifier sub-part the resulting sequence identifier is unique at least at that time.
An announcement system for use in a publish-subscribe architecture, the system comprising:
- message compiling means arranged in use to compile an index message containing a plurality of sequence identifiers respectively identifying a plurality of sequences of messages, each message in each sequence relating to substantially the same subject matter;
- and means for transmitting the compiled index message onto an index channel;
- the system being characterised in that the sequence identifiers comprise at least two sub-parts, and the message compiling means is further arranged to operate, for any sequence identifier to be included within the index message, to include within the index message only those sub-parts of a sequence identifier which are necessary to uniquely identify the sequence identifier from the other sequence identifiers included within the message.
An apparatus for allocating a sequence identifier to a sequence of messages relating to substantially the same subject matter and which are to be transmit onto one or more communications channels, the apparatus comprising:
- identifier part generation means for generating a first, meaningless, sequence identifier sub-part;
- sequence identifier generation means arranged to combine the generated meaningless identifier part with a second, meaningful, sequence identifier sub-part to provide the sequence identifier;
- and
- sequence identifier allocating means for allocating the sequence identifier to the sequence of messages;
- wherein the first sequence identifier sub-part is generated such that when combined with the second sequence identifier sub-part the resulting sequence identifier is unique at least at that time.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.