Enhanced user view/update capability for managing data from relational tables
AssigneeMCI Communications Corporation
InventorJonathan Gardner
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system and method for creating customizable views of a database so that database users may view and update tables in a manner that requires no knowledge of the underlying database schema or of the database commands. The system includes a view database and a view/update utility. The view database includes database tables for associating a relational table with a particular view and for associating one or more fields of the relational table with the view. The view/update utility utilizes the view database in performing the processes of creating, displaying, and updating views.
Claims19
A system for creating views of data stored in a relational database, comprising:
- a view database for storing one or more views;
- and
- a view utility;
- said view utility having access to said view database and the relational database;
- wherein said view utility comprises:
- a graphical user interface for enabling the user to interact with said view utility;
- view creation window for creating one or more views, wherein a user inputs data to be displayed by the one or more views in fields of said window;
- and
- storing means for storing said one or more views in said view database.
A method for creating a view of a relational database, comprising the steps of:
- generating a view identifier to identify the view;
- displaying a window requesting input of a table to associate with the view identifier;
- receiving input of a table to associate with the view identifier;
- associating said table within the relational database with said view identifier;
- displaying a window requesting input of one or more fields in said table to associate with the view identifier;
- receiving input of one or more fields of said table to associate with the view identifier;
- associating one or more fields of said table with said view identifier;
- determining which of said fields are lookup fields;
- and
- for each of said lookup fields, associating a corresponding lookup table, lookup field and display field with said lookup field.
In a system having a view database that stores a plurality of views, a method for enabling a user unfamiliar with relational database commands to display data that is stored in a relational database, comprising the steps of:
- determining which of the plurality of views are assigned to the user;
- displaying a list of view descriptions corresponding to said views assigned to the user;
- waiting for the user to select a view description from among said list of displayed view descriptions;
- creating a database command corresponding to said selected view description;
- and
- executing said command.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.