Patent ID: 7136859

Claim:
In a computer system that manages two or more different types of data structures, each type of data structure being organized in accordance with a set of rules and corresponding to an identity, a method for directly operating on data structures in a generic manner regardless of the type of data structure being operated upon and without requiring dedicated executable code for manipulating data structures of a particular data type, the method comprising the following: an act of recognizing a common set of command methods that operate on data structures of a number of different data types corresponding to a plurality of applications and to a plurality of identities that control access to the data structures; an act of accessing a request to execute a command method on at least a portion of a data structure of a particular data type corresponding to one or more applications and to a particular identity, the command method being one of the common set of command methods, and the request to execute the command method identifying the data structure by identifying (i) the particular identity, (ii) a set of rules associated with the particular data type, and (iii) an instance to be operated upon from among more than one instance of the particular data type for the particular identity; and a step for executing the command method on at least a portion of the data structure in accordance with a set of rules associated with the particular data type.