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Abstract

A method and apparatus for object oriented interprocess message switching between a sender process and a plurality of receiver processes is disclosed. A sender process may address object oriented messages to a plurality of objects without knowing the identities of programs that handle or observe the object operations defined by the object types of the addressee objects, whether these programs are being executed, and how to start their execution if they are not being executed. Object operations defined by object types may be inherited from predecessor object types. Inherited object operations may also be overridden for 'pre-processing' and 'post-processing'. One handler process and any number of observer processes are selected for each object oriented message. Handler processes are selected for object oriented notice messages as well as object oriented request messages and vice versa. Executing as well as non-executing processes (i.e. programs) are selected. The sender process and the receiver processes may be executed on the same different computers in a network.

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First Claim