Patent · US Expired

Apparatus and method for disabling methods called on an object

US6230311A · kind A · utility

12Cited by
12References
35Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJun 12, 1998
Grant dateMay 8, 2001
Priority date
Expiry dateJun 12, 2018

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F9/449
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

The present invention provides an object-oriented disabling mechanism which selectively disables object methods. The object-oriented disabling mechanism prevents the selected methods from being called on an object by other programs or processes via various alternative embodiments. A first preferred embodiment of the object-oriented disabling mechanism works in conjunction with a plurality of method tables to restrict method calls on an object. An alternative preferred embodiment of the object oriented disabling mechanism works in conjunction with a read flag and a write flag to define which methods can be called on an object. Another alternative preferred embodiment of the object oriented disabling mechanism uses software "locks" and a lock conflict matrix associated with the object to determine which methods can be called on an object. A final alternative preferred embodiment of the object oriented disabling mechanism uses a transactional mechanism to commit or rollback changes made to an object as a result of method calls.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.