Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 10
Claim 1
Independent Claim
203 words
Software maintenance system for maintaining the currency of software objects in a data processing system in which are defined objects and events required for said maintenance, each of said objects having a plurality of conditions, a plurality of attributes and a plurality of methods associated therewith, each of said methods specifying operations to be performed by said data processing system, said attributes including a list of zero, one or more dependency objects on which the associated object depends and each of said events having one or more conditions associated therewith, the software maintenance system comprising a dependency interpreter for recursively identifying from said dependency objects target objects on which an initial object and identified target objects depend, and delivering an event to all of the identified target objects before delivering the event to the initial object, said delivery comprising testing the conditions associated with the target object to determine whether the conditions associated with the event are satisfied and, if they are satisfied, testing the methods associated with the target object to determine whether the target object has an associated method matching the event and, if it has, causing the data processing system to perform the operations specified by the matching associated method.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
67 words
Software maintenance system as claimed in Claim 1 further comprising: source object storage means for storing source code descriptions of said objects; event storage means for storing source code descriptions of said events; parsing means for transforming said object and event source code descriptions into an intermediate language representation; and data structure means for building said objects and events into a data structure in said storage means.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
60 words
Software maintenance system as claimed in Claim 1 or Claim 2 wherein said object definitions include generic objects having attributes and methods and wherein said system further comprises: object instantiation means for identifying a generic object similar to said initial or target object and for generating an instance of said generic object with properties of said initial or target object.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
19 words
Software maintenance system as claimed in Claim 3 wherein said instance inherits attributes and methods from said generic object.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
23 words
Software maintenance system as claimed in any preceding claim, comprising operator interaction means for identifying an operator selected initial object and initial event.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
85 words
Software maintenance system as claimed in any of Claims 2 to 5 wherein said event storage means and said object storage means comprises system random access memory beginning at a first address and wherein said system further comprises: non-volatile system storage means for copying data in said event storage means and said object storage means to said non-volatile system storage; and means for copying data from said non-volatile storage to said event storage and said object storage so that said first address remains the same.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
25 words
Software maintenance system as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said events further include prerequisite events that must be applied to objects before said event.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
39 words
Software maintenance system as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said event conditions include a delivery condition, a pre-application condition and a post-application condition, wherein failure of said pre-application or post-application conditions causes an error message to be generated.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
28 words
Software maintenance system as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the conditions are one of: object exists, object does not exist, built, out of date, or no condition.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
212 words
An information processing system for managing message passing between objects, said system comprising: storage means for storing objects and events, said objects having a plurality of condition states, a plurality of attributes, and a plurality if methods, each of said methods having an identifier and specifying operations to be performed by said processing system, said attributes including a list of zero, one or more dependency objects on which this object depends, said events having a plurality of conditions; initialisation means for starting said system, said initialisation means determining an initial object and an initial event; dependency interpreter means for recursively identifying target objects on which said initial object and identified target objects depends based on said dependency objects, and for delivering said initial event to all of said identified target objects before delivering said event to said initial object; delivery means for delivering said initial event to said target objects, said delivery means including means for testing said target object to determine whether said event conditions are satisfied; means for testing said target object methods, if said event conditions are satisfied, to determine whether a method for the event is associated for that object; and processing means for executing said method if said means for testing locates a method for said event.