Patent ID: 7404177

Claim:
A method for automatically adapting a legacy software application that includes interface specification definitions which include definitions of screen formats, including data fields created from legacy source code and developed for an environment comprising a centralized computing resource interconnected to a series of computer terminal devices, to a network environment, wherein said network environment comprises a system of distributed, interconnected network computing resources, said method comprising the steps of: (a) providing a software application which utilizes said legacy source code to automatically generate a series of user interface software components from the screen format definitions to provide a graphical user interface providing at least data entry and display facilities of the interface specification definitions, the series of executable software components being executable by a scripting language running on said interconnected network computing resource, the components containing object oriented methods for setting or obtaining values of said data fields and being executable by at least one of said computing resources in said network environment, and upon execution, said computing resource is caused to interconnect with said legacy software application over said network so as to interact with said legacy software application in the transmission or receipt of information to and from said legacy software application, wherein the executable software components are capable of interacting with one of the scripting language or an intermediary software application to invoke user provided code.