Patent ID: 6598219
Filing Date: 2003-07-22
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
A computer program product for an object oriented application program for creating objects, the application program having a user interface for supporting the creation of objects, said user interface comprising a plurality of items, said items defining a sequence of tasks for creating the objects, and said application program including an export utility for exporting document files, said computer program product comprising:a program storage device having recorded thereon a plurality of machine-readable instructions, said instructions instructing a computer to generate document files for export, and to export said document files, wherein: (a) each said document file expresses at least a portion of a respective data model, each data model comprising a plurality of objects, each of said objects corresponding to a respective task in said sequence of tasks for creating the objects, each said document file being expressed according to a meta data programming language; (b) each said document file comprises a non-empty subset of a plurality of data elements corresponding to the plurality of objects of the respective data model, each of said data elements corresponding to a respective task in said sequence of tasks for creating the objects; (c) said data elements are arranged according to a meta data model; (d) said meta data model mirrors the sequence of tasks defined in the user interface; and (e) said instructions of said program storage device are capable of generating a first document file expressing a first data model, said first document file containing all of said plurality of data elements corresponding to the plurality of objects of the first data model, and a second document file expressing a portion of said first data model, said second document file containing fewer than all of said plurality of data elements corresponding to the plurality of objects of the first data model.