Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer-to-computer data routing – Least weight routing
Reexamination Certificate
1998-08-28
2001-09-18
Courtenay, III, St.John (Department: 2151)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer-to-computer data routing
Least weight routing
Reexamination Certificate
active
06292842
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to computer systems and more particularly to transferring data within such computer systems. Even more particularly, the invention relates to formatting and transferring data between two applications within a computer system.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
When a source application program needs to transfer data to a destination application program, there is usually more than one access mechanism available to use in the transfer. For example within the Microsoft Windows® operating system, a source application could use OLE automation to transfer the data, or the source application might save the data into a file, then start the destination application and pass the file name on the command line so that the destination application then reads the file.
Similarly, the data can often be transferred using one of several data formats. For example, image data can often be transferred using a bit map image file (BMP), a GIF image file, JPEG, etc. A destination application program may only be able to accept one of these formats, or the destination application program may be able to accept more than one format, in which case, one of the formats can be selected.
When the source application is designed to obtain data from an input device, and the data is then sent to one of many different destination application programs, using one of several different access mechanisms, and using one of several different data formats, the number of combinations becomes very large. Prior art methods of transferring data used a different program for each combination, such that, for example, there is a program for transferring data to Microsoft Word using OLE automation and using the BMP data format. A second transfer program must be used to transfer to Microsoft Word using OLE automation with the GIF data format. A third transfer program is needed to transfer to Word using BMP and launching word with the file name on the command line. Thus, in the prior art, large numbers of transfer programs are needed to transfer data to several application programs using only a few access mechanisms and only a few data formats, because of the large number of combinations that arise.
Also, when the transfer programs are created, they naturally tend to copy programming code when creating a new transfer program, since often the operation is the same. For example, the code to format data into the BMP format might be used in most transfer programs that transfer using the BMP data format. However, if this code needs to be modified, it has to be modified in each of the programs that use the code, thus incurring high cost, and reduced reliability.
Another disadvantage of this method is that a new receiving application program cannot receive data until a new transfer program is written for it, even if it is capable of using the same access mechanism, since the transfer programs are all tailored to each particular receiving application.
It is thus apparent that there is a need in the art for an improved method or apparatus that reduces the number of transfer programs needed to transfer data from one application program to other application programs using a variety of access mechanisms and data formats. The present invention meets these and other needs in the art.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an aspect of the present invention to transfer data from one computer application to another.
It is another aspect of the invention to transfer data from a device to an application within a computer system.
Another aspect of the invention is to use multiple levels of modules when transferring data.
Still another aspect of the invention is that each level of modules is designed to use the same state machine and the same interface.
A further aspect of the invention is to dynamically choose the method of transferring data to the application.
A still further aspect of the invention is to dynamically choose the format of the data being transferred to the application.
The above and other aspects of the invention are accomplished in a system of chained destination modules. When a source application wants to send data to a destination application, the source application loads a first chained destination module to perform the transfer. The first chained destination module determines whether there is more than one access mechanism available to transfer the data to the destination application. If there is more than one access mechanism available, the first chained destination module chooses one of the access mechanisms, and loads a second chained destination module to process the data using the chosen access mechanism.
Similarly, if more than one data format can be used in the transfer, the second chained destination module chooses a data format and loads a third chained destination module to process the data using the chosen data format.
In addition, lower levels of chained destination modules can be used to break down the process into even more detailed levels.
All chained destination modules use the same interface, such that a destination module does not need to know if the module it calls to perform an operation uses a lower level chained destination module to actually accomplish the operation.
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Crouch Scott
Russon Virgil
Courtenay, III St.-John
Hewlett--Packard Company
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