Apparatus, method and machine-readable medium for facilitating generation of a markup language document containing identical sets of markup language elements

Information

  • Patent Application
  • 20070180360
  • Publication Number
    20070180360
  • Date Filed
    February 02, 2006
    18 years ago
  • Date Published
    August 02, 2007
    17 years ago
Abstract
From a markup language document (e.g. an Extensible Markup Language (XML) document expressed as a Document Object Model (DOM) tree) having a markup language element hierarchy containing a set of markup language elements and a plurality of references to the hierarchy, another markup language document (e.g. a textual XML document) is generated which contains one instance of the set of markup language elements for each of the plurality of references. The generated markup language document may otherwise have the same content as the original markup language document. Generation of a markup language document containing identical sets of markup language elements may thereby be simplified.
Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the figures which illustrate example embodiments of this invention:



FIG. 1 schematically illustrates a wireless communication device including virtual machine software;



FIG. 2A illustrates the organization of exemplary virtual machine software at the wireless communication device of FIG. 1;



FIG. 2B further illustrates the organization of exemplary virtual machine software at the wireless communication device of FIG. 1;



FIG. 3 illustrates an operating environment for the wireless communication device of FIG. 1;



FIG. 4 illustrates the structure of example application definitions used by the device of FIG. 1;



FIG. 5 schematically illustrates the formation of application definition files at a transaction server of FIG. 3 from a master definition file;



FIG. 6 schematically illustrates the transaction server of FIG. 3 in greater detail;



FIG. 7 is a flow diagram illustrating the exchange of sample messages passed between a wireless communication device, transaction server and application server;



FIGS. 8-10 illustrate operation performed at a wireless communication device under control of virtual machine software of FIGS. 2A and 2B;



FIG. 11 schematically illustrates the wireless communication device operating environment of FIG. 3 with an exemplary Rapid Application Development (RAD) tool which may be used to develop master definition files in a manner exemplary of an embodiment of the present invention;



FIG. 12 schematically illustrates the RAD tool of FIG. 11 in greater detail;



FIG. 13 illustrates an exemplary graphical user interface (GUI) of the RAD tool of FIG. 12;



FIG. 14 illustrates a project explorer portion of the RAD tool GUI of FIG. 13 in which exemplary global functions are declared;



FIG. 15 illustrates a login screen for a Pocket PC wireless computing device defined in the project explorer of FIG. 14;



FIG. 16 illustrates a French language version of the login screen of FIG. 15 that is also defined in the project explorer of FIG. 14;



FIGS. 17A-17B textually illustrate a master definition Document Object Model (DOM) tree that is maintained in the memory of the RAD tool of FIG. 12 during mobile application design to represent the screens of FIGS. 15 and 16; and



FIGS. 18A-18B illustrate a master definition file which results from the serialization of the DOM tree of FIGS. 17A-17B.


Claims
  • 1. An apparatus comprising: at least one processor; anda memory coupled to said at least one processor storing: a markup language document containing: a markup language element hierarchy containing a set of markup language elements; anda plurality of references to said markup language element hierarchy; andmachine-executable code which, when executed by the at least one processor, generates, from said markup language document, another markup language document containing one instance of said set of markup language elements for each of said plurality of references.
  • 2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said markup language is Extensible Markup Language (XML), said markup language document is an XML document, said set of markup language elements is a set of XML elements, and said another markup language document is another XML document.
  • 3. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said markup language element hierarchy has a parent markup language element and wherein each of said plurality of references is a further markup language element having an attribute identifying said parent markup language element of said markup language element hierarchy.
  • 4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein each of said markup language elements of said set is representative of a wireless communication device action and wherein said markup language element hierarchy has a parent markup language element representative of an aggregation of wireless communication device actions.
  • 5. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein said wireless communication device action is any of displaying a message box, sending a markup language message, terminating an application, closing a graphical user interface (GUI) screen, executing a conditional if-then-else expression, playing a notification sound, opening a specified GUI screen, purging a buffer, refreshing a displayed GUI screen or saving a value to the buffer.
  • 6. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein each of said markup language elements of said set is an instance of the same markup language element.
  • 7. A machine-readable medium comprising: machine-executable code for generating, from a markup language document containing: a markup language element hierarchy containing a set of markup language elements; anda plurality of references to said markup language element hierarchy, another markup language document containing one instance of said set of markup language elements for each of said plurality of references.
  • 8. The machine-readable medium of claim 7 wherein said markup language is Extensible Markup Language (XML), said markup language document is an XML document, said set of markup language elements is a set of XML elements, and said another markup language document is another XML document.
  • 9. The machine-readable medium of claim 7 wherein said markup language element hierarchy has a parent markup language element and wherein each of said plurality of references is a further markup language element having an attribute identifying said parent markup language element of said markup language element hierarchy.
  • 10. The machine-readable medium of claim 7 wherein each of said markup language elements of said set is representative of a wireless communication device action and wherein said markup language element hierarchy has a parent markup language element representative of an aggregation of wireless communication device actions.
  • 11. The machine-readable medium of claim 10 wherein said wireless communication device action is any of displaying a message box, sending a markup language message, terminating an application, closing a graphical user interface (GUI) screen, executing a conditional if-then-else expression, playing a notification sound, opening a specified GUI screen, purging a buffer, refreshing a displayed GUI screen or saving a value to the buffer.
  • 12. The machine-readable medium of claim 7 wherein each of said markup language elements of said set is an instance of the same markup language element.
  • 13. A method comprising: generating, from a markup language document containing: a markup language element hierarchy containing a set of markup language elements; anda plurality of references to said markup language element hierarchy, another markup language document containing one instance of said set of markup language elements for each of said plurality of references.
  • 14. The method of claim 13 wherein said markup language is Extensible Markup Language (XML), said markup language document is an XML document, said set of markup language elements is a set of XML elements, and said another markup language document is another XML document.
  • 15. The method of claim 13 wherein said markup language element hierarchy has a parent markup language element and wherein each of said plurality of references is a further markup language element having an attribute identifying said parent markup language element of said markup language element hierarchy.
  • 16. The method of claim 13 wherein each of said markup language elements of said set is representative of a wireless communication device action and wherein said markup language element hierarchy has a parent markup language element representative of an aggregation of wireless communication device actions.
  • 17. The method of claim 16 wherein said wireless communication device action is any of displaying a message box, sending a markup language message, terminating an application, closing a graphical user interface (GUI) screen, executing a conditional if-then-else expression, playing a notification sound, opening a specified GUI screen, purging a buffer, refreshing a displayed GUI screen or saving a value to the buffer.
  • 18. The method of claim 13 wherein each of said markup language elements of said set is an instance of the same markup language element.