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AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsAstrid Kreissig, Gerald Kreissig, Armin Stegerer
Estimating the term…
An object-oriented framework is introduced for coupling device drivers to an application program. Two class trees are introduced: the first class tree comprises the device drivers. The device drivers actually exchange messages with the IO devices. They depend on the protocol used, on the IO interface, and on the operating system. The second class tree comprises the so-called physical objects. Their task is to define parameters that are necessary to describe what an IO device is supposed to do. The parameters only depend on the device's functionality, but not on the protocol, the IO interface or the operating system. In order to couple a physical object with a device driver, the physical object holds a pointer to its device driver. The connection is an “object reference,” and therefore, the active device driver may be changed at runtime.
An object-oriented framework in memory of a computer system, said framework providing a communication path between an application program and IO devices attached to said computer system, each IO device being connected to a certain IO interface and utilizing a certain IO protocol for exchanging messages with said computer system, said framework comprising:
A computer-implemented method for establishing a communication path between an application program and an Input/Output (IO) device that is attached to a computer system, said IO device being connected to a certain IO interface and utilizing a certain IO protocol for exchanging messages with said computer system, said method comprising the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.