Method and apparatus for data item movement between disparate sources and hierarchical, object-oriented representation

A method for mediating service requests from an object oriented computer program executing on a client machine, comprising:

• receiving a primary transaction request;
• correlating the received primary transaction request with a set of one or more secondary transaction requests;
• initiating communication of a one of said set of secondary transaction requests to a corresponding data source;
• receiving a result from said corresponding data source, wherein said result comprises data items related by said data source according to a first pattern;
• constructing a response to said primary transaction request using the received result, wherein said constructing includes relating a plurality of said data items according to a second pattern, said second pattern being independent of said first pattern;
• and
• initiating communication of said response in reply to said primary transaction request.

A data processing apparatus for mediating service requests from an object oriented computer program executing on client machines, comprising:

• means for receiving a primary transaction request;
• means for correlating the received primary transaction request with a set of one or more secondary transaction requests;
• source communicating means for initiating communication of a one of said set of secondary transaction requests to a corresponding data source;
• means for receiving a result from said corresponding data source, wherein said result comprises data items related by said data source according to a first pattern;
• means for constructing a response to said primary transaction request using the received result, wherein said means for constructing includes means for relating a plurality of said data items according to a second pattern, said second pattern being independent of said first pattern;
• and
• client communicating means for initiating communication of said response in reply to said primary transaction request.

A data processing apparatus for mediating service requests from an object oriented computer program executing on a client machine, comprising:

• a central processing unit;
• and
• a memory unit coupled to said central processing unit, comprising:
• instruction code for receiving a primary transaction request;
• instruction code for correlating the received primary transaction request with a set of one or more secondary transaction requests;
• source communicating instruction code for initiating communication of a one of said set of secondary transaction requests to a corresponding data source;
• instruction code for receiving a result from said corresponding data source, wherein said result comprises data items related by said data source according to a first pattern;
• instruction code for constructing a response to said primary transaction request using the received result, wherein said constructing instruction code includes instruction code for relating a plurality of said data items according to a second pattern, said second pattern being independent of said first pattern;
• and
• client communicating instruction code for initiating communication of said response in reply to said primary transaction request.

A data processing system for processing data maintained by disparate data sources, using object oriented programs, comprising:

• a client transactor layer for sending a primary transaction request, receiving a response to the primary transaction request, transmuting information from said response into programming objects, and for selecting the class of a primary application programming object from a set of candidate object classes based, at least in part, on information in said response,
• a client-server communication layer coupled to said client transactor layer for providing bidirectional communication;
• a server processor layer coupled to said client-server communication layer for receiving, processing, and responding to primary transaction requests, wherein said processing includes identifying and requesting server-source transactions useful in satisfying the primary transaction request;
• a resource adapter layer coupled to said server processor layer for receiving and communicating requests for server-source transactions;
• a server-source communication layer coupled to said resource adapter layer for providing bidirectional communication;
• a data accessor layer coupled to said server-source communication layer for supplying data from disparate sources in response to server-source requests communicated from said resource adapter layer;
• and
• wherein said responding of said server processor layer includes relating data items into said response according to a stored pattern that is independent of relationship patterns for said data items used by the data accessor layer.