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Abstract

The invention proposes a method of defining and generating cooperating object structures for accessing Business Applications (BAs) which were not built upon the principles of object orientation (OO) in an OO manner. One step of the method is targeted at the definition of true Business Object (BO) classes with a unique meaning as entities or concepts in terms of the underlying business as supported by the BA. As the BAs process the business relevant data, their spectrum of the input and output parameters serve to define the BO Attributes (BOAs) of the individual BO classes. A further step of the method is the encapsulation of the individual BAs within Transactional Object (TO) classes for controlling and executing the BAs. TO instances are able to autonomously extract BOA values from the BO instances to assemble the input parameters for BA execution. The TO instances are also endowed to process the output parameters as returned by the BA to materialize BOs, i.e. to extend existing BOs with with new BOAs or to instantiate new BO instances. Interacting with the BOs may transparently result in executing BAs with the TOs thus the BOs support an OO-access of the BAs. The BAs may even be executed on a remote data processing system as TOs are able to drive communication protocols.

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First Claim