Patent ID: 7761493

Claim:
A computer implemented method for sparse population of an object-oriented information model hierarchy in a run-time environment, the method comprising: on a computer system, installing an application module on the run-time environment, wherein the module comprises a list of classes supported by the module; determining with a module interface engine on the computer system whether the run-time environment on which the module is installed possesses hierarchical information about each class in the list of classes supported by the module; responsive to determining with a model comparison engine on the computer system that the run-time environment lacks hierarchical information about at least one class supported by the module, querying with a model inheritance engine on the computer system a class definition repository for hierarchal class information for the at least one class; determining with the model inheritance engine an ancestral history for each of the classes not currently supported by the run-time environment using the hierarchical class information; and maintaining on the run-time environment of the computer system the ancestral history; wherein only ancestral history for supported classes is maintained in the object-oriented information model hierarchy.