Patent Application: US-3768605-A

Abstract:
the provision of methods and apparatus to determine package identity for an application build . the idea is based on providing a mapping of package with affiliated attributes such as paths used for include or linking , along with reverse mappings . this mapping could be provided through any number of conventional environments such as program development environments or operating system registries : tools would access this information through a programmatic interface , and use that information to identify packages affiliated with some information . for example , a symbol in a program would be defined in some file . that file would be in a path , which maps to the package identity . thus , the symbol definition can be conceptually affiliated with a package .

Description:
broadly contemplated herein are a method and apparatus for determining package dependency by one or more programming tools , either within or outside of a program development environment . in preferred embodiments , the programming tools are included within a programming environment , and include common program development tools , such as but not restricted to , compiler , linkers , library managers , debuggers , and program editors . referring now to the drawings , and more particularly to fig1 , there is shown a block diagram of a data processing system 100 for program development of the present invention , as described above . in preferred embodiments , the data processing system 100 is an ibm intellistation computer (“ ibm ” and “ intellistation ” are both registered trademarks of the international business machines corporation ). however , other data processing systems 100 are also contemplated for use by the present invention . for example , one can use a plurality of separate electronic circuits or devices ( e . g ., hardwired electronic or logic circuits , or programmable logic devices such as plds , plas , pals , or the like ). a suitable programmed general purpose computer , e . g ., a microprocessor , microcontroller or other processor device ( cpu or mpu ), either alone or in conjunction with one or more peripherals ( e . g . integrated circuit ) data and signal processing devices can be used . in general , any device or assembly of devices on which a finite state machine capable of implementing the flow charts shown in the figures can be used as a controller in accordance with the embodiments of the present invention . referring again to fig1 , the data processing system 100 may preferably comprise a data processor 101 having a memory 102 . the memory 102 is coupled to the data processor 101 via a bidirectional bus 103 . in preferred embodiments , the memory 102 includes program and data memory . the memory also includes program development tools 104 , compilers , linkers , and library managers . it may also contain an integrated program development environment ide 105 , which can invoke the program development tools 104 . the memory 102 also contains data memory 106 , specifically data and objects related to the execution of the program development tools 104 and the ide 105 . the ide 105 presents information to the user on display 107 , which is coupled to the data processor 101 . in at least one preferred embodiment , a user data entry device 108 ( e . g . keyboard or other interactive device ), and a pointing device 109 , for example , a mouse or a trackball , are also coupled to the data processor 101 . in a preferred embodiment , the display 107 provides a presentation space for the ide in order to display the pieces of a program being constructed . in further embodiments , either the pointing device 108 or predefined keys of the data entry device 109 may be used to manipulate the data in conformity with aspects of the present invention . it is also contemplated that a persistent storage mechanism 110 may preferably exist and be utilized to store ide and program piece information 106 . this type of storage media may include , but is not limited to , standard disk drive technology , tape , or flash memory . in a preferred embodiment , the program information 106 may be both stored onto the persistent media , and / or retrieved by similar processing system 100 for execution . in fig2 there is shown an overview 200 of the components of an interactive program development program , in accordance with a preferred embodiment . the environment shows a set of commonly recognized program development tools , such as but not limited to , a compiler 201 , a linker 202 , a debugger 203 , and a program library manager 204 . there is also shown a program editor 205 , typically used as a processor for source code entry , but not restricted to that purpose . there is also a user interface manager 206 which coordinates different views on program artifacts such as source views , project views , and the like . there is also an ide framework component 207 which is a process which integrates the entire above mentioned components , coordinating their executions and collecting their outputs . the ide framework provides other functions such as program project management , file management , and sequences user activity . in fig3 there is shown an overview 300 of the software components and related data of a typical tool found in an interactive program development program 200 , as it relates to a preferred embodiment . preferably provided is a set of program development tools 301 . by way of example only , such tools include compilers , linkers , program analyzers , etc . by the term location descriptor what is generally meant is a data reference , including but not restricted to file or directory paths , urls , data base references , or any other arrangement for locating data or a repository of data . by identity descriptor what is generally meant is any information about a software entity , above and beyond related location descriptors , including by way of example , its name , version , product description , web link references , etc . there is shown in fig3 the data schema for an identity - location descriptor mapping . an identity descriptor 302 has a set of location descriptions 303 . this is a simple mapping , as is typically implemented as program hash maps , familiar to those of ordinary skill in the art . reversing this defined mapping , each location descriptor 303 has one or more identity descriptors 302 . again , those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that these mappings are easily implemented . there is preferably provided , in accordance with at least one presently preferred embodiment of the present invention , a software component called the identity descriptor manager 304 , whose function is to retrieve the identity descriptors that map from a given location descriptor , or visa versa , or to retrieve the location descriptors that map from a given identity descriptor . the identity - location dictionary 305 includes the data that provides the mappings between identity and location descriptors . the information need not necessarily be restricted to computer memory and , in fact , could embrace other storage arrangements including , for example disk , flash memory , or any distributed memory means . in that sense , and by way of illustrative example only , there could be a persistent repository 306 of the identity - location dictionary . there is also preferably a descriptor mapper 307 whose purpose is to process requests from client processes . this component processes requests , of which the following are but a few illustrative and non - restrictive examples : provision of a set of all locations that map to an identity ; and fig4 outlines the logic for populating the identity - location dictionary . this occurs in two phases , namely at the initialization phase for a tool &# 39 ; s use which presumably happens when the tool is initialized , and during tool processing as symbols are generated . in the initialization phase 400 , the first identity - location set is acquired 401 . if one is finished 402 getting identity - location - sets , we simply exit 403 the process . otherwise , the identity - location mapping is added to the dictionary 404 , as well as the location - identity mapping 405 based on the current identity - location set . this is done in a manner consistent with the data schema for entries in the dictionary described in fig3 . the next symbol - location set is obtained 406 ; with a return to the query 402 on the last detected such set . returning to fig4 , the logic for populating the identity - location dictionary during processing phase 420 begins with a request by the tool to add a given identity - location set to the dictionary 421 . the identity descriptor manager determines if a given identity and all the related locations are in the dictionary 422 . if yes , the identity descriptor manager returns to the caller . in this state , the identity - location mappings must be either created or updated , techniques for which are based on the mapping scheme such as hash tables , and are easily understood by anyone skilled in the art of programming . the identity - location information is added or updated 424 , as well as the location - identity mapping 425 . this is done in a manner consistent with the data schema for entries in the dictionary described in fig3 . returning to fig4 , the identity - location manager returns control to the caller 426 . in fig5 there is shown logic for a tool &# 39 ; s query , by way of the identity - location manager , for finding the identity descriptors related to one or more location descriptors . the tool collects a set of one or more locations 501 , and passes these to the identity - location manager 502 . the identity - location manager finds all mapped identity descriptors 503 , a process which will be more fully described at 520 . the tool then uses the descriptors in a means commensurate to the semantic processing of the tool 504 . returning again to fig5 , there is shown 502 , the logic processes of the identity - descriptor manager for determining , for a set of location descriptors , the set of mapped identity descriptors . the process commences with acquiring the first location descriptor 521 . a check is made to see if this is the last location descriptor of the input set of location descriptors 522 . if so , the tool exits with the current set of mapped identity descriptors 523 . otherwise , using the mapping means for identity - locations , the identity descriptor manager get the set of mapped identity descriptors 524 . a check is made to see if the set is empty 525 . if there are none , a note that there are no identity descriptors for that location descriptor is added to the return list 526 . otherwise , the identity descriptors are added to the return list 527 . whether redundancies are accepted or not into the return list is an implementation decision . the next location is obtained 528 with a return to the query on whether the list of input locations is exhausted 522 . as discourse on the utility of the embodiments of the present invention , consider languages such as c ++ or java . location descriptors , as used to include sub - packages ( or files ) into a given file , can be collected by a lexical search for the pertinent programming language key words such as # include statements in the file . from such a search , the list of location descriptors can be collected . using user - supplied or environment - obtained path information , the location descriptor information can be completed by straightforward means . next , by attempting to map individual ( completed ) location descriptors in such a list to their identity descriptors , the completeness of the dictionary knowledge for the location descriptors contained in a given file can be determined . if knowledge is complete , the individual mappings can be collected into a list of identity descriptors corresponding to the location descriptors contained in the file . such knowledge has useful purpose in identifying potentially erroneous conditions such as an unintentional reference to files from two distinct package implementations ( e . g . c ++ stl implementations ), when only one should be used . again as discourse on utility , another purpose that such information can serve is to recursively traverse the files of a package and its included files , collecting the known package identity descriptors in the process and their include dependencies on each other . recursive traversal of files is dependent upon the existence of included files as per specified location descriptors , which cannot be assumed since a combination of conditional compilation programs may be precluding individual include statements from actual use and hence the include files may not have been supplied or been otherwise removed . regardless , a traversal over as much of the included files &# 39 ; structure as it exists can be carried out and identity information over the existing tree obtained . such information is useful in indicating when a software package upgrade requires upgrading the files which depend upon or include the given package . similar logic for querying and obtaining a list of locations given a set of identities is similar to the above , and easily produced . it is to be understood that the present invention , in accordance with at least one presently preferred embodiment , includes an arrangement for determining one or more location descriptors related to a program context , an arrangement for collecting identity descriptors associated with at least one of the location descriptors , and an arrangement for utilizing collected identity descriptors for further analytical purposes . together , these elements may be implemented on at least one general - purpose computer running suitable software programs . these may also be implemented on at least one integrated circuit or part of at least one integrated circuit . thus , it is to be understood that the invention may be implemented in hardware , software , or a combination of both . if not otherwise stated herein , it is to be assumed that all patents , patent applications , patent publications and other publications ( including web - based publications ) mentioned and cited herein are hereby fully incorporated by reference herein as if set forth in their entirety herein . although illustrative embodiments of the present invention have been described herein with reference to the accompanying drawings , it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to those precise embodiments , and that various other changes and modifications may be affected therein by one skilled in the art without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention 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