Patent ID: 6880016

Claim:
A communication apparatus, comprising: messages; processing means (ILMS); and a database (ILMDB), the processing means and the database arranged for point-to-point communication with another communication apparatus (SRV(m)) by means of the messages the messages having flexible message formats (ILMF), and comprising a header comprising message definition references (MSG ID, MSG CLASS, MSG VERSION, MSG CREATOR), a sender identifier (SENDER ID) and a destination address (DESTINATION ADDRESS); and a message content including: a number of fields (FIELD COUNT) and a content of any field (FIELD( 1 ), . . . ), a number of objects (OBJECT COUNT) and a content of any object (OBJECT( 1 ), . . . ), the objects being referred to by one or more of the fields; a number of field mappings and a content of any field mapping, any field mapping being usable by predetermined fields, a number of actions and a content of any actions, any action being usable by the predetermined fields, wherein, said database (ILMDB) stores a predetermined message definition table (msgdef), a field definition table (flddef), mapping instructions (fldmap) and message action lists (fldact, msgpre, msgpost); and said processing means (ILMS) is arranged to interpret and process the messages while consulting said predetermined message definition table (msgdef), mapping instructions (fldmap) and message action lists (fldact, msgpre, msgpost) stored in said database (ILMDB) using said message definition references as references to said predetermined message definitions; said predetermined message definition table (msgdef) comprises a message system identifier (msysid) for use as a reference to further tables in said database (ILMDB), said further tables comprise a field action table (fldact) comprising said message action lists usable by predetermined fields, and said further tables comprise a message pre-processing table (msgpre) comprising a list of actions to be executed as pre-processing for a message either received or to be send and a message post-processing (msgpost) comprising a list of actions to be executed as post-processing for a message received.