Managing results of federated searches across heterogeneous datastores with a federated collection object

An object-oriented computer software package for processing results of a query in a computer system using an object-oriented data model, said package comprising:

• a data class defining methods and attributes used by a data object to represent and manipulate results of said query individually;
• a collection class defining methods and attributes used by a collection object to represent and manipulate collections of said data objects together;
• and
• a federated collection class defining methods and attributes used by a federated collection object to represent and manipulate multiple collection objects together;
• said software package thereby providing an object-oriented framework which can return the results of a query as a nested-object stricture of said object-oriented data model, so that said data objects are nested within said collection objects and said collection objects are nested within said federated collection object.

An object-oriented computer software package stored in a computer readable medium, for processing results of a query in a computer system using an object-oriented data model, said package comprising:

• a data class defining methods and attributes used by a data object to represent and manipulate results of said query individually;
• a collection class defining methods and attributes used by a collection object to represent and manipulate collections of said data objects together;
• and
• a federated collection class defining methods and attributes used by a federated collection object to represent and manipulate multiple collection objects together;
• said software package thereby providing an object-oriented framework which can return the results of a query as a nested-object stricture of said object-oriented data model, so that said data objects are nested within said collection objects and said collection objects are nested within said federated collection object.