Patent ID: 6237134
Filing Date: 2001-05-22
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
A method of executing a future by a computer system having a processor and a memory, said future comprising a place-holder for a value of a computation which allows asynchronous computation by enabling delaying the computation of the value until the value is required, said method comprising the steps of:storing, in the memory of the computer system, an object type of future type wherein the type future type indicates that a future function object has a handle of type future type and that the type of the future function object is convertible from the type future type to a result type;passing a non-future N-ary function pointer to an adaptor, wherein the non-future N-ary function pointer is a function pointer that accepts N parameters and has a type other than future type, and wherein the non-future N-ary function pointer and the adaptor are stored in the memory of the computer system;converting from the non-future N-ary function pointer to a future function object of type future type by use of the adaptor, the adaptor building the future function object by passing the non-future N-ary function pointer to a constructor of a future function template class instance, wherein the future function object is also stored in the memory of the computer system; andreturning the future function object.