US 5,845,289 A · Methodology for generating object structures for accessing conventional, non-object-oriented business applications

Abstract

The invention proposes a method of defining and generating cooperating object structures for accessing Business Applications (BAs) which were not built upon the principles of object orientation (OO) in an OO manner. One step of the method is targeted at the definition of true Business Object (BO) classes with a unique meaning as entities or concepts in terms of the underlying business as supported by the BA. As the BAs process the business relevant data, their spectrum of the input and output parameters serve to define the BO Attributes (BOAs) of the individual BO classes. A further step of the method is the encapsulation of the individual BAs within Transactional Object (TO) classes for controlling and executing the BAs. TO instances are able to autonomously extract BOA values from the BO instances to assemble the input parameters for BA execution. The TO instances are also endowed to process the output parameters as returned by the BA to materialize BOs, i.e. to extend existing BOs with with new BOAs or to instantiate new BO instances. Interacting with the BOs may transparently result in executing BAs with the TOs thus the BOs support an OO-access of the BAs. The BAs may even be executed on a remote data processing system as TOs are able to drive communication protocols.

Claims19

Dependent claims

Method of generating an object-oriented (OO) access to at least one Business Application (BA) executed on a data processing system wherein said BA does not correspond to the paradigm of object-orientation comprising the steps of:

defining at least one Business Object (BO) class with a meaning as a unique entity or concept in terms of the underlying business supported by the BA;
defining BO attributes (BOA) of said BO class enclosing input and output parameters of said BA;
defining at least one Transactional Object (TO) class for encapsulating said BA;
wherein said TO class being provided to control the execution of said BA according to the peculiarities of said BA;
wherein said TO class being provided to track the state of said BA if said BA execution requires a multitude of interactions sending or receiving input or output parameters;
wherein said TO class being provided to extract the input parameters for BA invocation from said BOAS;
and wherein said TO class being provided to execute the so-called materialization process consisting in;
creating at least one BO instance of said BO class if said BO instance of said BO class is not instantiated yet and
extracting and storing said output data parameters returned by said BA into said corresponding BOAs.

6 more elements

Method of executing on a data processing system at least one Business Application (BA) wherein said BA does not correspond to the paradigm of object-orientation

comprising a step in which a Business Object (BO), being an instance of a BO class with a meaning as a unique entity or concept in terms of the underlying business
supported by the BA and said BO contains BO attributes (BOA) of said BO class enclosing input and output parameters of said BA, calls a method of at least one Transactional Object (TO), being an instance of a TO class for encapsulating said BA;
comprising a step in which said TO controls the execution of said BA according to the peculiarities of said BA;
comprising a step in which said TO tracks the state of said BA if said BA execution requires a multitude of interactions sending or receiving input or output parameters;
comprising a step in which said TO extracts the input parameters for BA invocation from said BOAs;
comprising a step in which said TO executes the so-called materialization process consisting in;
creating one or more BOs of one or more additional BO classes if said BO instances of said additional BO classes are not instantiated yet and
extracting and storing said output data parameters returned by said BA into said corresponding BOAs of said BOs.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Methodology for generating object structures for accessing conventional, non-object-oriented business applications

Life of this patent

Methodology for generating object structures for accessing conventional, non-object-oriented business applications

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims19