Patent ID: 8904411

Claim:
A system, comprising: a computer processor; and a memory containing a program that, when executed on the computer processor, performs an operation for making internal data accessible through an application programming interface (API), wherein the internal data is maintained internally by a source application, and wherein the internal data comprises data that is not exposed to any external application via any API provided by the source application, comprising: monitoring a plurality of actions taken by the source application; analyzing the plurality of actions to identify the internal data maintained by the source application, comprising: identifying a location within a first file where the source application maintains the internal data, based on at least one of the plurality of actions; and determining a first storage format the source application maintains the internal data in, based on at least one of header information for the first file, a file extension of the first file, and at least a portion of content contained in the first file; retrieving the internal data from the identified location; converting the retrieved internal data from the determined first storage format to a common format; and providing the API for accessing the converted internal data.