Methods and apparatus for providing dynamic invocation of applicatons in a distributed heterogeneous environment

Claim 2

The method of claim 1 wherein the data processing network includes user context information (1180, 1402) corresponding to a user of the client application, and wherein the step of using said data base (630) to determine the identifier for the first method includes the substep of determining the identifier for the first method by reference to the user context information.

Claim 3

The method of claim 1 wherein the data processing network includes group context information (1180, 1404) corresponding to a group of users of the network, and wherein the step of using said data base (630) to determine the identifier for the first method includes the substep of determining the identifier for the first method by reference to the group context information.

Claim 4

The method of claim 1 wherein the data processing network includes a global data base (705) accessible to each of said plurality of platforms in the network and containing information about the class of said first instance, and wherein the step (1560) of using said data base to determine the identifier for the first method includes the steps of determining (1610, 1620) said class of the first instance; accessing (1640) the global data base with said class of the first instance and the first message to locate the identifier for the first method; and retrieving (1680) the identifier of the first method (1686).

Claim 5

The method of claim 4 wherein the data processing network includes context information (1180) corresponding to users of the client application, and wherein said first method is one of a plurality of methods (1655) and associated with each of the plurality of methods is a set of attributes (1657, 1659) defining the common characteristics of the instances in the associated class, and wherein the step of determining the identifier for the first method includes the step of comparing (1670) the context information with the set of attributes of each method to select (1680) said first one of said plurality of methods.

Claim 6

The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of generating a context object data base (630) including context information; and wherein the step of causing the server application to invoke includes the step of: providing the context object data base for use by said server application to obtain preference information (1180) relating to said plurality of platforms within the network and used in determining said first method.

Claim 7

The method of claim 1 wherein the transmitting step includes the step of transmitting to the server one of said plurality of platforms said context information for use by the server application.

Claim 8

The method of claim 1 wherein associated with each of the classes (505) is a set of attributes (510) defining the instances in the associated class; and wherein the classes are hierarchically ordered into superclasses (460) and subclasses (470) such that the ones of the classes which are subclasses of a corresponding superclass inherit corresponding attributes from the corresponding superclass, with each of said subclasses associated with at least one of said superclasses; and wherein the method further includes the step of: determining the corresponding attributes of said first instance from the corresponding attributes of the class for the first instance and from the corresponding attributes of all of said superclasses of the class for the first instance.

Claim 9

The method of claim 1 wherein the client application (1220) is executing in a client one (1200) of the platforms, and wherein the step of using said data base to determine the identifier for the first method includes the substep of determining (1640), in the client one of the platforms, the class (1645) into which the first instance is organized.

Claim 10

A data processing network (50) for allowing remote invocation of server applications (1320) by client applications (1220) in an object oriented manner comprising: memory (150, 250, 350) in the network containing a data base, said data base including: a plurality of method entries (549) each corresponding to a server application and further containing a reference (560) to a mechanism for invoking a procedure to allow said server application to perform a specified operation (550) on a specified instance, a plurality of class entries (505), each containing information identifying a uniquely identifiable class (506) and a corresponding group (530, 540) of said method entries, each of the classes being referenced by a different set of instances, which are items that may be manipulated or accessed by the server applications, with instances in the same class sharing common characteristics, and each class entry further containing an identification of a corresponding group of message entries (521, 525) , and a plurality of message entries (521, 525) each being identified in said class entries, and containing information specifying the types of operations which can be performed on instances in the corresponding classes; and a plurality of first data processing platforms (1200) operating under the control of a first operating system (1240), for executing the client applications (1220); a plurality of second data processing platforms (1300) operating under the control of a second, different operating system (1340) for executing the server applications (1320), the first platforms including means (1236) for generating a method invocation request including an identifier for a selected instance and an identifier for a desired message, data base control means (620, 1230, 1236), coupled to the memory in the network, for controlling the data base, the database control means including means for selecting a server application to be invoked as a result of said request; means for determining an identifier for a first method from said request, the first method including a reference to a procedure to allow the selected server application to perform the desired operation on the selected instance; means for selecting one of said second platforms (1300) on which to invoke said selected server application (1320); and means for transmitting to the selected one of the second platforms the reference to the selected server application via the identifier for the selected instance; and with each of the plurality of second platforms including: means (1330) for receiving the reference for the selected server application from the transmitting means in the data base control means.

Claim 11

The data processing network of claim 10 wherein selected ones of the first platforms (1200) can be ones of the second platforms (1300).

Claim 12

The data processing network of claim 10 wherein a portion of the memory (1250) in the network resides in the plurality of first platforms.

Claim 13

The data processing network of claim 10 wherein a portion of the memory (1350) in the network resides in the plurality of second platforms.

Claim 14

The data processing network of claim 10 wherein the first platforms (1200) include storage means for holding context information corresponding to users of the client application, and means for determining the identifier for the first method by reference to the context information.