Importance

Loading Importance Indicators...

Abstract

An event notification system for propagating object-change information. The notification system supports change notification without queues in an object-based application or operating system and can be scaled to propagate large numbers of events among a large plurality of objects. The event notification system interconnects a plurality of event source and event receiver objects. Any object, such as a command object, may operate as either an event receiver object, an event source object or both. A notification object is created by a source object to transport, from a source to a receiver, descriptive information about a change, which includes a particular receiver object method and a pointer to the source object that sent the notification. A receiver object must register with a connection object its 'interest' in receiving notification of changes; specifying both the event type and the particular source object of interest. After establishing such connections, the receiver object receives only the events of the specified type for the source objects 'of interest' and no others. This delegation of event selection avoids central event queuing altogether and so limits receiver object event processing that the invention can be scaled to large systems operating large numbers of objects.

Loading the Abstract Image...

First Claim