Patent ID: 7451404

Claim:
A method of accessing data via a legacy computer system, the method comprising: identifying a plurality of legacy computer system screen fields of an application, each screen field of the plurality of screen fields associated with at least one unit of data; determining for each screen field a screen field identifier and one or more screen field location identifiers; prior to accessing a screen containing the screen fields, storing in a configuration file the screen field identifier and the one or more screen field location identifiers for each screen field of the plurality of screen fields, wherein the one or more screen location identifiers further include a screen number, wherein the screen field location identifiers comprise a field row, a field column, and a field length, wherein each screen has a name, and wherein storing in the configuration file comprises: storing the screen name followed by an underscore character, storing the screen field identifier following the underscore character and being followed by an equal sign character, storing the screen number following the equal sign character and being followed by a first colon character, storing the field row following the first colon and being followed by a second colon, storing the field column following the second colon and being followed by a third colon, and storing the field length following the third colon; and obtaining the unit of data for one or more of the screen fields of the screen by finding the location of the screen fields for the screen from the screen field location identifiers of the stored configuration file.