A system, method, and program enables a platform independent way for specifying a property, or function, of a program. Values of properties that are specific to a given operating system are treated as a variable in a program which enables it to run on multiple operating systems. This enables the program to be developed and run on different operating systems. The program reads in the properties and the values, or variables, from a script file into property objects. As such, variables that have meaning to a system can be put into the property object as the value for that property. To use the property by the program, the program sends a get call to the property object to get the value or to provide substitution of a platform specific value for the variable. Accessible to the program is a plurality of operating system specific code segments which define an actual value for the variable for the specific operating systems. Once the substitution is made, the program uses the actual substituted value for the process the program is carrying out. At the end of the program's process, the program saves the properties by parsing out the operating system specific value and inserting the variable back in. The program is then capable of being run on a different operating system. This provides a platform independent way for an install program to specify and use directories or other install properties; or for other programs to specify and use properties in general; i.e., by creating platform independent variables for properties.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
The present application is related to the following applications:
Application Ser. No. 09/280,345 (IBM internal docket no. AT9-98-869), entitled "A CROSS-PLATFORM PROGRAM, SYSTEM, AND METHOD HAVING A GLOBAL REGISTRY OBJECT FOR MAPPING REGISTRY EQUIVALENT FUNCTIONS IN AN AIX OPERATING SYSTEM ENVIRONMENT";
Application Ser. No. 09/280,350 (IBM internal docket no. AT9-98-852), entitled "A CROSS-PLATFORM PROGRAM, SYSTEM, AND METHOD HAVING A GLOBAL REGISTRY OBJECT FOR MAPPING REGISTRY EQUIVALENT FUNCTIONS IN AN OS/2 OPERATING SYSTEM ENVIRONMENT";
Application Ser. No. 09/280,345 (IBM internal docket no. AT9-98-851), entitled "A CROSS-PLATFORM PROGRAM, SYSTEM, AND METHOD HAVING A GLOBAL REGISTRY OBJECT FOR MAPPING REGISTRY FUNCTIONS IN A WINDOWS OPERATING SYSTEM ENVIRONMENT";
Application Ser. No. 09/280,371 (IBM internal docket no. AT9-98-853), entitled "GLOBAL REGISTRY OBJECT FOR MAPPING REGISTRY FUNCTIONS AND REGISTRY EQUIVALENT FUNCTIONS ACROSS MULTIPLE OPERATING SYSTEMS IN A CROSS-PLATFORM PROGRAM";
Application Ser. No. 09/280,368 (IBM internal docket no. AT9-98-861), entitled "A CROSS-PLATFORM PROGRAM, SYSTEM, AND METHOD HAVING A SYSTEM INDEPENDENT REGISTRY FOR USE ON OPERATING SYSTEMS IRRESPECTIVE OF A REGISTRY EQUIVALENT";
Application Ser. No. 09/280,346 (IBM internal docket no. AT9-98-865), entitled "A SYSTEM, METHOD, AND PROGRAM FOR OVERRIDING PROGRAM PROPERTIES";
Application Ser. No. 09/280,352 (IBM internal docket no. AT9-98-863), entitled "A SYSTEM, METHOD, AND PROGRAM FOR PROVIDING AN OBJECT-ORIENTED INSTALL ARCHITECTURE";
Application Ser. No. 09/280,375 (IBM internal docket no. AT9-98-858), entitled "A SYSTEM, METHOD, AND PROGRAM FOR AUTOMATIC ERROR DETECTION WHILE UTILIZING A SOFTWARE STATE MACHINE FOR CARRYING OUT THE PROCESS FLOW OF A SOFTWARE PROGRAM";
Application Ser. No. 09/280,376 (IBM internal docket no. AT9-98-855), entitled "A SYSTEM, METHOD, AND PROGRAM FOR UTILIZING A SOFTWARE STATE MACHINE FOR CARRYING OUT THE PROCESS FLOW OF A SOFTWARE PROGRAM";
Application Ser. No. 09/280,369 (IBM internal docket no. AT9-98-859), entitled "A SYSTEM, METHOD, AND PROGRAM FOR ENABLING A SOFTWARE PROGRAM TO AUTOMATICALLY SELECT A SYSTEM-DEPENDENT FUNCTION";
Application Ser. No. 09/280,372 (IBM internal docket no. AT9-98-857), entitled "A SYSTEM, METHOD, AND PROGRAM FOR MAPPING A GLOBAL OBJECT TO DESKTOP ELEMENTS OF DIFFERENT OPERATING SYSTEMS";
Application Ser. No. 09/280,370 (IBM internal docket no. AT9-98-856), entitled "A SYSTEM, METHOD, AND PROGRAM FOR PROCESSING DEPENDENCIES USING A DEPENDENCY OBJECT";
Application Ser. No. 09/280,348 (IBM internal docket no. AT9-98-854), entitled "A SYSTEM, METHOD, AND PROGRAM FOR MODIFYING A TEXT FILE";
Application Ser. No. 09/280,351 (IBM internal docket no. AT9-98-866), entitled "A SYSTEM, METHOD, AND PROGRAM FOR UPDATING REGISTRY OBJECTS WITH A CROSS-PLATFORM INSTALLATION PROGRAM";
Application Ser. No. 09/280,374 (IBM internal docket no. AT9-98-867), entitled "A SYSTEM, METHOD, AND PROGRAM FOR PRESERVING BACKGROUND SETTINGS DURING INSTALL AND UNINSTALL OPERATIONS";
Application Ser. No. 09/280,347 (IBM internal docket no. AT9-98-860), entitled "A SYSTEM, METHOD, AND PROGRAM FOR MODIFYING A LIBRARY OBJECT";
Application Ser. No. 09/280,353 (IBM internal docket no. AT9-98-864), entitled "A SYSTEM, METHOD, AND PROGRAM FOR INSTALLATION ON DRIVES USING A DRIVE OBJECT"; and
Application Ser. No. 09/280,373 (IBM internal docket no. AT9-98-868), entitled "A SYSTEM, METHOD, AND PROGRAM FOR PERFORMING PROGRAM SPECIFIC OPERATIONS DURING THE UNINSTALLATION OF A COMPUTER PROGRAM FROM A COMPUTER SYSTEM."
The above are all filed on the same day as the present application, assigned to the assignee of the present application, and incorporated by reference herein.
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
Disclosed is a system, method, and program for creating a file, such as a batch file, that is capable of executing on one of many different operating systems. An object is processed including a plurality of instructions. Each instruction is associated with at least one executable function. A determination is made of an operating system in which the generated file will be executed. For each instruction in the object, a native operating system command is generated that is capable of executing the function associated with the instruction on the determined operating system. Each generated native operating system command is inserted into the file. Execution of the file on the determined operating system will execute the native operating system commands in the file to perform the functions associated with the instructions included in the object.
The method and system of the present invention automatically generates an installation file or database containing information describing or characterizing the installation. A verifying tool can compare the installation information to installed information relating to or describing the files actually installed by the install program.
A system and method for supporting multiple operating systems with mutually exclusive requirements on a single computer system, or platform. The operating system sets an ACPI variable to identify the operating system running on the platform. The system firmware automatically comes up with a common set of functionality to satisfy all operating systems that can run on the platform. The ACPI interpreter reads the OS identifying variable upon boot-up and uses it in conditional code that depends on the operating system to fully define the operation of the system component.
A system, method, and program enables a versatile tool kit to be used in developing a program that can be run on multiple operating systems. A script file, containing properties and associated values that are to be used by the program on a specific operating system, is created. The properties and associated values from the script file are read into property objects used by the program. After the program is compiled, a value for a property variable in a property object can be changed, e.g., changed temporarily such as for testing the newly created program, by using a special designation in a set statement. The specially designated "set to environment variable" method compares each environment variable name in the specially designated set statement with the property variable name in the script file. If the names match, the method updates the corresponding property object with the value of the environment variable set in the specially designated method. Each value associated with a corresponding property in the script file can thus remain unchanged while still being able to override, temporarily, the value which is to be used by the executing program.
In an exemplary described implementation, an electronic device is configured to perform operations that include: activate a platform dependent module that is targeted to run on a current platform of the electronic device; activate an error detection module for the current platform using the platform dependent module; retrieve an error detection scheme; apply the retrieved error detection scheme to received data to determine error detection data; compare the determined error detection data to received error detection data; and if the determined error detection data matches the received error detection data, provide at least one feature with respect to the received data. Other apparatus, method, arrangement, system, media, etc. implementations are described herein.
