Patent ID: 8443357
Filing Date: 2013-05-14
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method of applying patches to a multi-level data container archived as a first file, wherein said multi-level data container contains a plurality of containers and a plurality of files at a plurality of levels in a hierarchical manner such that said first file having said plurality of files represents a software pre-installed on a digital processing system, wherein each of said plurality of containers is in the form of a corresponding archive file containing a collection of files, said method comprising: receiving a set of patches to be applied to said multi-level data container, each of said set of patches being directed to a corresponding one of a set of targets, each target representing a file or container located in one of said plurality of containers; determining a superset of containers comprised in said plurality of containers, said superset of containers including a root container representing said multi-level data container and a corresponding set of containers in the path from said root container to each of said set of targets, wherein the set of containers in at least some of the paths to respective targets includes a corresponding container in addition to the target such that the number of containers in said superset of containers is more than that in said set of targets; unarchiving each of said superset of containers to generate corresponding one of a plurality of sets of unarchived files, wherein unarchiving a container in said superset of containers comprises extracting the collection of files contained in the archive file corresponding to the container such that the set of unarchived files for the container contains the extracted collection of files; applying each of said set of patches to the corresponding one of said set of targets in said sets of unarchived files to generate updated versions of said plurality of sets of unarchived files; and generating an updated version of said multi-level data container by archiving said updated versions of said plurality of sets of unarchived files into updated versions of respective containers, wherein said updated version of said multi-level data container is generated in the form of a second file such that said second file having the updated versions of said plurality of files and said plurality of containers represents said software, whereby a number of containers in said superset of containers is less than a number of containers in said plurality of containers if any of said plurality of containers is not required to be unarchived to perform said applying.