Electrical computers and digital processing systems: interprogra – Interprogram communication using message
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-21
2004-12-28
An, Meng-Al T. (Department: 2126)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: interprogra
Interprogram communication using message
C719S318000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06836891
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to an object collaboration apparatus for performing collaboration processing such as communication and cooperation between a group of computers or objects, and relates to an object collaboration apparatus for organizing a system, in which a plurality of processes arise in an object-oriented environment, and which flexibly adjusts to environmental changes and progressively changes accordingly through a computer network.
BACKGROUND ART
As the use of networks has spread in recent years, the number of systems in which a plurality of objects distributed on a network perform a process while collaborating with each other is increasing. As techniques for such objects to perform a process in collaboration with each other, research focuses on object-oriented programming and component technology.
One example of object-oriented programming is the open specification for operating distributed objects CORBA (Common Object Request Broker: Architecture and Specification), issued by the trade association OMG (Object Management Group), which has been set up in order to standardize and promote object-oriented technology.
FIG. 37
shows an example of an object collaboration in a client/server system based on CORBA. In this system, a series of processes is conducted by collaboration of a client application and a server application, namely by an object collaboration.
Application developers describe the service interface provided by a client and a server with IDL (Interface Definition Language). The interface is defined by a group of operations that can be requested from an object. For each operation, the name of the operation, parameters, return value, error exception processing, and additional information are defined.
Compiling the content defined with IDL by a specialized compiler creates a stub for a client and a skeleton for a server. The stub is a group of routines that provide a client application with access to a group of operations defined with IDL. In the client application, calling the routine provided by the stub activates the operation. The skeleton provides a dispatching routine to a method routine provided by a server application.
The stub and the skeleton are generated in a programming language which is used by the corresponding client application or server application. For example, if C is used as the programming language, the stub is formed as a group of functions in C. The client application calls the function corresponding to the operation to be carried out, thereby calling the corresponding routine of the server application via the stub, ORB run time and the skeleton. After executing the predetermined processing, the processing result is returned to the client application which originated the call.
Thus, organizing object collaboration processing has become easier with CORBA. However, when actually trying to organize such an object collaboration processing with CORBA, it is necessary not only to understand CORBA itself, but also to design the object according to the CORBA specifications and define it with IDL. In other words, to construct the system it is necessary to fully understand CORBA's application methods.
It is also necessary to be fully aware of the relationship between the objects. That is to say, it is necessary to make clear what kind of processing is conducted by each object, and which transmission parameters are required for the processing.
Creating an open interface between objects has increased the independence of objects. However, the existence of a fixed relationship between these objects is still a precondition.
When thinking of human communication, vague interaction often happens in reality. For example, when a person tries to solve a problem, he/she utilizes his/her own resources or asks other people for collaboration. In the case of utilizing the own resources, a problem is considered from various view points. Also, in the case of asking others for help, it is possible to ask either a specific person for help, or to broadly request assistance from an unspecified person. In the case of broadly asking an unspecified person for assistance, the reaction of the recipient varies in many ways. Some who have a solution may present an answer, while others may give advice by passing on their own experience and knowledge, even if that does not directly present a solution. Still others might ignore the inquiry because of total indifference. In other words, whether or not the recipient reacts to a certain piece of information depends on the recipient. Furthermore, when the recipient decides to react to the information, how the recipient does so depends on the recipient.
When the human being in this analogy is replaced with an object here, depending on the object there may be different reactions regarding the choice of receiving or not receiving information floated on a network or the processing performed in response to the received information. That is, a free collaboration is desirable in the collaboration between objects. In conventional collaboration methods, it was a precondition that the relation between objects was fixed, and it was difficult to organize collaboration systems with such free relations.
Thus, in distributed object system technology, for which CORBA and DCOM are prominent examples, the framework for providing access to an object that is transparent to the network and the framework with regard to interfaces for distributed objects are constantly improving. However, these frameworks are not adequate to answer the question of how to organize the dynamic collaboration between objects.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
To solve these problems, it is an object of the present invention to increase the degree of freedom for collaboration among objects connected to a network or for collaboration among computers. It is also an object of the present invention to present an object collaboration apparatus performing collaboration processes such as communication or cooperation in groups of computers or groups of objects, responding in a flexible manner to changes of the environment in an object-oriented environment, and organizing a system that changes progressively.
Because the object collaboration apparatus of the present invention increases the degree of freedom and the flexibility of collaboration chains among organized objects, it is possible to insert new objects into the organized collaboration between objects, and to organize a new object collaboration in a flexible and dynamic manner. Moreover, it is possible to couple object collaborations that have no collaboration relation together, and thereby organize a new object collaboration in a flexible and dynamic manner. Furthermore, it is possible to disrupt the organized collaboration between objects and construct an object collaboration chain by inserting an external object so as to organize a new object collaboration in a flexible and dynamic manner by so-called external intervention. Also, it is possible to organize not only one-to-one object collaboration, but to organize a new one-to-many object collaboration in a flexible and dynamic manner by so-called receiver-side collaboration participation or to organize a new many-to-one object collaboration in a flexible and dynamic manner by so-called sender-side collaboration participation.
It is another object of the object collaboration apparatus of the present invention to enable the setting of collaboration conditions in the object collaboration relations and control the permission of collaborations among those objects, while ensuring the above-mentioned degree of freedom and flexibility of object collaboration.
It is another object of the object collaboration apparatus of the present invention to provide a function for easily and explicitly grasping the relation of organized object collaborations, namely, input message patterns to which the objects react, the objects' actions and output message patterns and the collaborations conditions.
It is another object of the object collaboration apparatus of the pre
Iwao Tadashige
Okada Makoto
Shiouchi Masatoshi
Ushijima Satoru
Wada Yuji
An Meng-Al T.
Fujitsu Limited
Staas & Halsey , LLP
Zhen Li
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