Persistent agents
AssigneeOracle International Corporation
InventorRafiul Ahad
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Object persistence is facilitated by introducing persistent agents to act as bridges between the programming model and the database model. Persistent agents are instantiated on a per-class basis and are responsible for mapping their class to a suitable database related. Methods are defined for the persistent agent to specify database-specific properties and optimization hints.
Claims13
A method for persistently storing an object belonging to a class, wherein the method comprises performing a machine-executed operation involving instructions, wherein the machine-executed operation is at least one of:
- a) sending said instructions over transmission media;
- b) receiving said instructions over transmission media;
- c) storing said instructions onto a machine-readable storage medium;
- and
- d) executing the instructions;
- wherein said instructions are instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of:
- in response to receiving a request to instantiate a persistent agent for said class, performing the steps of:
- (a) creating one or more structures within a persistent object store, wherein said one or more structures have portions that correspond to respective fields of objects belonging to said class;
- and
- (b) instantiating a class-specific persistent agent for storing objects that belong to said class, wherein the class-specific persistent agent provides an interface, that includes a routine, for persistently storing the object in said structures within said persistent object store, wherein said class-specific persistent agent may only be used for operations involving objects belonging to said class;
- and
- in response to invoking the routine, the class-specific persistent agent storing the object in said one or more structures within the persistent object store, wherein the object is not derived from a persistent object base class.
A method for retrieving a set of objects from a persistent object store, wherein the method comprises performing a machine-executed operation involving instructions, wherein the machine-executed operation is at least one of:
- a) sending said instructions over transmission media;
- b) receiving said instructions over transmission media;
- c) storing said instructions onto a machine-readable storage medium;
- and
- d) executing the instructions;
- wherein said instructions are instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of:
- in response to a receiving a request to instantiate a persistent agent for a particular class, instantiating a class-specific persistent agent for retrieving objects of said particular class, said class-specific persistent agent provides an interface, that includes a routine, for retrieving objects of said particular class from the persistent object store, wherein the class-specific persistent agent may only be used for operations involving objects that belong to said particular class;
- and
- in response to invoking the routine, the class-specific persistent agent retrieving the set of objects from the persistent object store.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.