Abstract: An improved file system, file system object and method for customizing a file system object within a data processing system are disclosed. The data processing system executes an operating system and includes a storage media having contents organized according to a file system. According to the present invention, a file system object is stored within the storage media which comprises object data, a procedure, and a node that contains a number of attributes of the file system object. The attributes of the file system object contained within the node include an object data location indicator which indicates one or more locations of the object data within the storage media and a procedure location indicator which indicates one or more locations of portions of the procedure within the storage media.

Abstract: High performance backup of a computer system includes backing up changed portions of files and selectively choosing files for backup. Files are treated as a collection of blocks, and only those blocks which have changed since a previous backup are transmitted to a backup system. Prior to selecting blocks for backup, files are selectively chosen by excluding previously archived files such as commercial software, and excluding other non-critical applications and data based on, inter alia, commonality, modification date and a list of files which are already present in the backup system. Files may also be pre-loaded into a backup system in anticipation of their presence in the computer system to be backed up.

Abstract: A flexible, low cost range locking mechanism allows a process requesting a lock to place a lock upon any requested range within a resource of a computer system. Various processes may hold locks upon different ranges of a resource simultaneously. A particular range may also be locked by different processes that are able to share the range. A sub-lock represents a unique range of the resource and has begin and end points that identify that portion of the requested range to which the sub-lock corresponds. A locked range may include numerous sub-locks. Each sub-lock has a mode indicating whether the sub-lock represents a shared lock, an exclusive lock or other. Sub-locks also have an incremental counter indicating the number of processes that hold a read lock upon a region, a flag to indicate whether a process is waiting to lock the region, a queue for listing waiting processes and other attributes.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for generating dynamic Web pages is disclosed. Specifically, the present invention claims a method and apparatus for generating dynamic Web pages on a Web server by invoking and executing predefined procedural packages stored in a database. The claimed invention receives an object request on the Web server and activates a Web agent on the Web server based on the object request. The Web agent invokes and executes the predefined procedural package to retrieve data from a data repository, and then formats the retrieved data as HTML output.

Abstract: In summary, the present invention is a multithreaded computer system having a memory that stores a plurality of objects and a plurality of procedures. Each object has a lock status of locked or unlocked, and includes a data pointer to a data structure. The system uses a global object locking procedure to service lock requests on objects that have never been locked as well as objects that have not recently been locked, and uses a local object-specific locking procedure to service lock requests on locked objects and objects that have been recently locked. The global object locking procedure has instructions for changing a specified unlocked object's lock status to locked, and for creating for each specified object a local object locking procedure. The local object locking procedure includes a lock data subarray for storing the object's lock data and instructions for updating a specified object's stored lock data.

Abstract: An area in a page for a tuple-oriented file system is exclusively controlled such that a tuple is added to, deleted from or updated in a page including a tuple area in use, a vacant area having a deleted tuple and an unoccupied area. In the case where a transaction is active for increasing the total size of the vacant area in a given page, the particular vacant area is locked to prevent another active parallel transaction from using the same vacant area. During the time when the transaction for increasing the total size of the vacant area remains active, other transactions can add a tuple to the unoccupied area or update a tuple in use in the same page to the extent that the particular page is not compacted. The transaction for increasing the total size of the vacant area can perform a special compaction for collecting a plurality of discrete vacant areas into a continuous vacant area without increasing the unoccupied area in the page. The roll back operation can thus be executed securely.

Abstract: A system and method for assisting in the preparation of a document, and for analyzing a document, such as a patent or patent application, are described herein. The system aids a user to verify that terms in a patent application are being used consistently. The system also facilitates editing of the patent application so as to achieve terminology consistency. The system operates by allowing a user to select a document containing a patent application. The user then selects the specification portion of the patent application, and also selects the claims portion of the patent application. The system indexes the specification portion and the claims portion to thereby generate a merged index table. The system analyzes the merged index table to identify terms in the claims portion that are not present in the specification portion, and then displays these terms (called claim terms). A user can then edit the patent application so as to properly describe these terms in the specification.

Abstract: A system for transmitting files includes a transmitting terminal and receiving terminal. After a file transmission has aborted, the receiving terminal generates a size and checksum for the portion of the file received by the receiving terminal. The transmitting terminal generates the checksum based on the corresponding portion of the file stored in the transmitting terminal in reference to the size. The transmitting terminal re-starts the file transmission process if the checksum generated at the receiving terminal does not match that generated at the transmitting terminal. The transmitting terminal transmits the rest of the file that has not received by the receiving terminal if the checksum generated at the receiving terminal matches that generated at the transmitting terminal.

Abstract: To improve the efficiency in space of per-file clustering. According to the multiple version clustering of this invention, the difference which occurred from modification to the program information of a single source file is initially added to the same cluster as the one holding, the program information of the original source file. This is similar to per-file clustering. What is different from per-file clustering is that each time a difference is added, the amount of the difference is determined by units of byte, for example. Then, in accordance with the invention, in response to the occurrence of the amount of difference accumulation exceeding a predetermined amount, another cluster is created. At this time, the separate cluster will not accommodate another difference, but the entire program information of the modified source file. Differences brought by further modifications are accumulated not in the old cluster, but in the new cluster.

Abstract: Library management systems are used in data processing systems as a repository for objects such as computer programming code, textual information and various other types of data. Any object may be taken from the library, modified and returned as a new version. Several new versions may be created, each of which may also have new versions created, making it difficult to obtain the "correct" version. To resolve this difficulty, all versions are associated with their changes in order to determine whether a requested action, such as promoting a version from test to production, is allowable and truly desired. Thus, when an action is requested in terms of a number of reasons and a baseline version, any additional reasons for change associated with versions between the baseline and the desired version are determined. It is also determined whether there is a single version that encompasses exactly those versions created for the specified reasons from the baseline version.

Abstract: A method is described for operating a computer to sort a set of data records each having an associated key for governing the sort process, the method comprising determining a range for the key values by sampling the key values; defining a plurality of buckets, each bucket corresponding to a respective one of a plurality M of subintervals in the range, and two edge buckets for key values outside the range, each subinterval having a respective index; distributing the keys among the buckets by determining directly from each key value the index of the subinterval into which the key value falls; and processing the buckets in sequence in order to sort the records, sorting the keys in each bucket if the bucket contains more than one key.

Abstract: A data management system for managing data stored in a storage device is equipped with a behavioral storage unit for storing behavioral objects in which processing procedures on data management are defined, an entity storage unit for storing entity objects each of which refers to each of the behavioral objects, an object link management unit for setting reference relationship between the entity objects and the behavioral objects on the basis of a setting instruction and managing the set reference relationship, and a system executing unit for executing a processing procedure defined in a behavioral object to be referred to by an entity object which is instructed to be executed.

Abstract: A variety of methods and apparatus for managing a database in a object oriented environment are disclosed. According to the present invention, a database is provided which includes a database cache and a persistent database portion. Clients of the database are able to write quickly and asynchronously to the database cache, which may be located in transient memory such as random access memory. In order to maintain consistency between the state of the client and the state in the database, the data in the database cache must be written to the persistent database portion. In preferred embodiments a time commit thread executing in a computer process will, in single operations performed at predetermined intervals and when predetermined conditions are met, commit the data in the database cache into the persistent database portion. Thus through the strategies of the present invention, a single client database can have multiple clients.

Abstract: A computer data organization method in which data is organized in a hierarchical outline with each data element in the outline having a key field in which an identifier is inserted which is unique to that data element. Data related to each data element in the hierarchical outline are stored in a relational data base table with the unique key identifier of the hierarchical data element to which it is related inserted in a key index column. To make a fresh entry, a user types an appropriate outline heading in the field presented by the hierarchical data base manager and an identifier key unique to this entry is inserted, preferably automatically.

Abstract: A database access system for a distributed system, in which the database access load is distributed among a plurality of gateways, and an arbitrary character code set can be used for database access. After the lapse of a predetermined time length, processings for particular database access are terminated. An error of a DBMS or a component on the gateway is detected by a client. The gateway detects an error of the client in connection. The client notifies the character code set identification information of the character code used for outputting the request to the gateway, and the gateway converts the character code for the request and a response to the client. The gateway receives an access request, secures the connection with a database access language conversion unit, and sends the language converted to a DBMS. In the absence of a response after the lapse of a predetermined time length, the connection with the database access language conversion unit is terminated and an error is notified to the client.

Abstract: A database system is provided for reading data from a database to a database buffer and performing a physical sequential scan for the data on the buffer. If the preceding request for physical sequential scan is under execution, the database system operates to keep the succeeding request for scan in a waiting state until the preceding requested scan is completed and then execute the succeeding request for scan after the preceding requested scan is completed. If there are more than one succeeding requests for physical sequential scan, they are executed at the same time. Another scanning method is also provided. If the preceding request for scan is under execution, the succeeding requested scan is executed for the data existing after the halfway location at which the preceding scan process now reads the data. The short data is read from its head for completing the subsequent scan.

Abstract: To transfer a file comprising block data at high speed between sequential access type auxiliary memories, a file transmission program inquires of an operating system about the physical storage positions of the block data, determines a reading order to reduce the read access time on the basis of the results of inquiry, and issues read requests sequentially to the operating system according to the reading order. The file transmission program requests the operating system to transmit the read block data. The block data together with respective logical identification data, for example, logical block numbers, are transmitted to a receiving end which may be another computing system. The operating system at the receiving end is requested to secure the number of physical data blocks required to store the block data.

Abstract: A message originator is presented with a tree of phrase choices organized from broad to specific categories, with the selections in more specific categories directed by the originator's selections in the broader categories. In a specific embodiment, the selections relate to a patient's medical condition and observations of a health care provider, with broader categories indicating general body systems and narrower categories indicating specific items, including values for properties of an item described by other selections on the path. The text of the message is also presented to the originator, who can then edit the message as text. The text is derivable from the tree structure selections, or path, taken from the originator and the interspersed free form text. At any time in an editing process, or a viewing process after the message has been fixed, an editor or viewer can reselect the path on the tree which generated the text.

Abstract: An online database system executes an update or reference process for a plurality of records without stopping the online system by registering the update or reference process for reservation. By registering an update or reference process for a plurality of records for reservation beforehand, the reserved access process is executed at the designated reservation access time. The reservation update process is executed by a preliminary process for registering the process for reservation and a reservation update posterior process which is executed at the time of first access to the record after the reservation update time and the reservation reference process is executed by a preliminary process for registering the process for reservation, a posterior process which is executed after the reservation reference time, and a reservation reference backup process which is executed when an update process for said record which is generated after the reservation reference time and before the posterior process is executed.

Abstract: Online presentation of BOOKMASTER based publications on an ASCII terminal. Flat ASCII files are created directly from BOOKMASTER publications and an ASCII browser is invoked. A list of viewable publications is presented to a user. After the user selects a publication, the selected publication is opened and the chapter titles are displayed. After the user selects a specific chapter, the ASCII browser proceeds directly to that chapter and displays the material contained therein. The browser repeatedly retrieves chapters of the publication without restarting the program.