Abstract: Application configurations, including applications themselves, application components, and modules associated with the application are installed on an application-server machine and stored in system-determined locations. These locations, or absolute paths, are then stored in a “loose configuration”. As new versions of applications, components, and/or modules are installed, they are placed in unique locations and given unique version numbers. A record of each application configuration version are stored and are referred to as “snapshots”. These snapshots provide a record of and pointers to the various elements that make up the various application configuration versions, so that at any time, a current version of an application configuration can be “rolled back” to a previous version of an application configuration.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for synchronizing an XML document object model with the corresponding object model on the fly and in real time such that changes in either the document object model or the object model can be immediately reflected in the other without re-parsing the XML document. The invention utilizes a series of DOM/object model adapter software modules, each responsible for one (or more) object model properties and document object model nodes, respectively. Each adapter is registered to receive notification of a change in an object model property or DOM node for which it is responsible and updates the corresponding DOM node or object model property, respectively.

Abstract: Mapping information that describes the mapping of referenced projects to their container project is included in the container project, using a “module mapping” file. A module mapping file is a simple meta-data file, for use at development time only, which stores data that maps relative URIs to IDE project names. The module mapping file contains entries for the location of nested archives, relative to the virtual archive defined by the container project, mapped to the uniquely named referenced project within the IDE. The paths of the archive files are computed “on the fly” just before the application server is started, rather than being simply written into an extensions file, located within the container project, in a fixed form when the enterprise application is written/developed.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for synchronizing an XML document object model with the corresponding object model on the fly and in real time such that changes in either the document object model or the object model can be immediately reflected in the other without re-parsing the XML document. The invention utilizes a series of DOM/object model adapter software modules, each responsible for one (or more) object model properties and document object model nodes, respectively. Each adapter is registered to receive notification of a change in an object model property or DOM node for which it is responsible and updates the corresponding DOM node or object model property, respectively.

Abstract: The present invention simplifies the tasks that programmers need to carry out to manipulate (e.g., load and save) archives. This is accomplished by providing a common archive interface which is utilized by the programmer to access archive files of varying formats. The common archive interface implements a common set of methods or instructions which the programmer can utilize to manipulate the files, and which automatically and transparently to the programmer loads and saves the files appropriately without regard as to the format (archive or directory) in which the files are stored. The user (programmer) simply utilizes a finite set of simple functions, e.g., “openArchive”, “getDeploymentDescriptor”, “getFiles”, “save”, “extract”, etc. and a “virtual archive containing the requested files is returned to the programmer.

Abstract: The invention provides an efficient method and apparatus for exchanging data between two entities, such as two application programs or a resource library and an application program. The invention provides a mechanism for populating a complex object model implementation in accordance with the particular data format preferred by the receiving entity from one or more external data formats on the fly responsive to a request for data. The method and apparatus allow the registration of resource factories which can produce resources through mechanisms other than the traditional parsing of a file. One implementation of this is using the URL scheme to identify the factory to handle a request, and allowing that factory to create a specialized Java package resource.