Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1998-04-28
2001-12-11
Black, Thomas (Department: 2171)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
active
06330565
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to the handling and storage of attributes in a print management system. In particular, this invention is directed to the separate storage of persistent and non-persistent attributes.
2. Description of Related Art
Print management systems provide a method to control and access various printers and to manage other related information remotely. However, in the current systems, the extent to which these functions can be utilized is limited by the fixed set of predefined system attributes.
Attributes are collections of data that describe the entities that compose the print management system. In other words, attributes define or characterize print management systems abstract entities, or objects. For example, document attributes, such as plex, margin, orientation, etc., describe how the printed material should appear. Printer attributes, such as media-ready, fonts-ready, etc., describe the available resources or features of the printer. Other printer attributes may describe the various printing features that users may use to produce high-quality documents, or they may describe status or configuration information, such as the printer's state or location. In addition to these attributes, there are a set of attributes to facilitate end-user, operator and administrator functions. In summary, attributes are a set of data that describes the objects of the printer management system.
There are three basic elements to an attribute: an object identifier (OID), a syntax and a value. An OID is a globally unique identifier of an attribute which is coded such that it may be understood by all printing systems. The OIDs are allocated following a tree format, such that each printer vendor or standard organization is designed as a branch of this tree. Then each organization may assign unique OIDs by further branching out.
For example, the OID of “job-owner” is 1.0.10175.1.3.1.3 in the ISO 10175 standard for Document Printing Applications (DPA). If the server receives the “job-owner” attribute, the server can store the attribute or send this information to an account log upon completion of a print job using the OIDs, for example. Then, an accounting program written by a third party vendor can easily interpret the information in the accounting log through the OIDs.
The syntax of an attribute is the format in which the attribute value is represented. For example, the syntax of the “job-owner” attribute is “distinguishedNameString”, which is an example of coded language the computer or printing system understands.
The value of an attribute is the instance of the attribute. For example, the value of “job-owner” could be “John Jones” , i.e., the name of the person to whom the print job belongs.
FIG. 1
is a diagram of a print management system
100
showing the interaction between the client
130
, the server
110
and the output device
140
. The output device
140
is, for example, a printer. The client
130
is the interface between the user and the print management system. The server
110
takes print requests from multiple clients
130
, schedules print jobs based on the print requests and then forwards the print jobs to the output device
140
.
For example, when a user submits a print job by selecting documents, the printer and other attributes, the client
130
puts together this data and sends it to the server
110
. The server
110
then reads the data and stores the document data in a print data memory and creates an abstract entity, a job object, that contains the attributes specified in the data package from the client
130
and stores it in the object database
120
. When the output device
140
is ready to print a new job, the server
110
retrieves the document data from the print data memory and sends the document data to the output device
140
. The server
110
also retrieves the job object attributes from the object database
120
, and based on these attributes, sends print controls to the output device
140
.
The processing of attributes in a print management system is described, for example, in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/976,180, “FILTER INTERFACE FOR MANAGING PRINTER SYSTEM INFORMATION,” filed Nov. 21, 1997, now U.S. Pat. No. 617,839 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/966,406, “DYNAMIC EXTENSION OF PRINT CAPABILITIES,” filed Nov. 7, 1997, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,055,063 the subject matter of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Many object-based programs store attributes persistently (i.e., stored in a resident memory and continuously read and updated), so that this information can be maintained during system restart. As shown in
FIG. 2
, an object database
120
is often used to achieve this persistency.
However, there are many attributes that do not need to be stored persistently, such as those that are reset at restart or are dynamically calculated. The storage of these non-persistent attributes in the object database increases the number of input and output transactions required, increases the use of disk space, and slows down system performance.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention provides a method and apparatus for storing non-persistent attributes separately from persistent attributes in a print management system. The system server may register callback functions with the object database which allow an attribute to be stored non-persistently, yet be obtained from the object database as if they were stored as one of the persistent attributes. The server attempts to retrieve the attribute from an object database. The object database may then determine whether the requested attribute has been registered as non-persistent in a separate virtual memory. If the requested attribute is registered as non-persistent, the object database invokes the callback function. Otherwise, if the requested attribute is not registered as non-persistent, the object database retrieves the information from disk using a database application program.
These and other features and advantages of this invention are described or are apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4814971 (1989-03-01), Thatte
patent: 4853842 (1989-08-01), Thatte et al.
patent: 5008786 (1991-04-01), Thatte
patent: 5452447 (1995-09-01), Nelson et al.
patent: 5943679 (1999-08-01), Niles et al.
patent: 5995985 (1999-11-01), Cai
patent: 6026474 (2000-02-01), Carter et al.
patent: 6055063 (2000-04-01), Yang et al.
Black Thomas
Jung David
Oliff & Berridg,e PLC
Xerox Corporation
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