Patent · US Expired

Software patch generator

US6289509A · kind A · utility

103Cited by
8References
5Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventor

Key dates

Filing dateSep 1, 1998
Grant dateSep 11, 2001
Priority date
Expiry dateSep 1, 2018

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F8/658
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A system for generating a patch file from an old version of computer code which consists of a series of elements and a new version of computer code which also consists of a series of elements. Both the old and new versions of computer code are stored in a memory of a computer. An alphabet for processing the old and new versions of computer code is programmed into the computer and, once established, the old version of computer code is sorted with the data processor alphabetically according to the established alphabet to create a first sorted list of code. A pointer is maintained in order to indicate each element's original location in the old version of computer code. Similarly, the new version of computer code is also sorted alphabetically to create a second sorted list of code with a pointer of each element to indicate the element's original location in the new version of computer code. Once the two sorted lists are created, they are recursively compared one word (a group of elements) at a time to search for a match of the codes. Upon finding a match of the codes, the first and second sorted lists of code are searched to find the largest sequence of coinciding elements preceding a…

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