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Using hierarchical ini files to represent complex user settings in a multi user environmentRelated Patent Categories: Electrical Computers And Digital Processing Systems: Support, Digital Data Processing System Initialization Or Configuration (e.g., Initializing, Set Up, Configuration, Or Resetting)Using hierarchical ini files to represent complex user settings in a multi user environment description/claimsThe Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20060005001, Using hierarchical ini files to represent complex user settings in a multi user environment. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] This invention relates to improved methods to configure and maintain user settings in a multi user environment. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] The files used to initialize settings for a computer, computer program, and/or computer network for individual users are referred to as initialization files. Different computer programs read from these initialization files to determine the configuration of the computer, computer program and/or computer network for the individual user. It is a common practice to keep these initialization files in a simple text format as opposed to a propriety format. Keeping these files in a simple text format has plenty of advantages. This brings forth simplicity in structure. This also implies that these initialization files can be read and edited by any text editor as opposed to having a propriety tool that understands the format of these files to let any file operation possible on these initialization files by the user. It is also very easy to read and write to an initialization file, as different library functions exist in a variety of languages and scripts to read and write to a text file. Examples of these initialization files in text format are plenty. In UNIX (trademarked) environments, a profile text file initializes the environment for a user at login time. A similar task used to be done in DOS through a config.sys file. Microsoft Windows (trademarked) 3.X, Windows (trademarked) 9X, Microsoft Windows NT (trademarked), Microsoft Windows 2000 (trademarked) and Microsoft Windows XP (trademarked) use a variety of initialization files. [0003] These initialization files can be broadly categorized into two types of files, i.e. information files which have a .inf extension in their names (known in the art as inf files) and initialization files which have a .ini extension in their names (known in the art as ini files). [0004] The structure of these initialization files--ini files and inf files are similar to each other and are comprised of a pair of ini entry and value, which are separated by an equal sign and divided into different sections. The sections are identified by section header which is a text string enclosed between square brackets. By using text based tags to identify sections, entry and values, ini and inf files preserve the text based nature of the file and at the same time bring an order to a text file to make it more structured to store settings. [0005] Typically an inf file can be used to store computer hardware configuration data or information for a device. Ini files are used to hold computer software configuration data or information. [0006] Ini and Inf files have the advantage of simplicity of structure associated with any text file. In addition to this advantage, by using the above-described format of dividing the file into sections, different settings can be bundled into different groups (identified by sections in ini and inf files). This gives users of the ini and inf files a little bit more flexibility compared to any other text file in terms of managing the data that is to be stored. One more advantage of files in ini and inf format is that there are tools available to read and write easily to these files (ini and inf files), such as "GenInf.exe" from Microsoft (trademarked) and "ChkInf.exe" from Microsoft (trademarked). [0007] Looking at the structure of these ini and inf files in more detail, an ini or an inf file is divided into sections, which are identified by a section name typically called "IniSectionName". Each section is comprised of a number of entries (each typically called "IniEntry") and their respective values (each typically called "IniEntryValue"). Therefore the IniEntryValue for a combination of IniSectionName and IniEntry defines a value (IniEntryValue) that a user will be initialized to for a given setting(IniSectionName and IniEntry). Logically, this implies that a sequence of three strings (IniSectionName, IniEntry, IniEntryValue) can define the configuration for a user. This setting can be a particular software setting or user environment in that computer system or in the organizational network [0008] The computer software settings or configuration that the initialization files in text format intend to deploy can be for all the users, for a group of users or an individual user of a computer or computer network. In the real world, configurations are deployed at an organization level where users are divided into different groups and subgroups where any single user can derive certain properties from the group or sub group to which he or she belongs to or have certain set of his or her own unique attributes. It would be very advantageous to use the text based initialization files in this scenario due to their advantages already listed above. [0009] However, due to its simplicity of structure, these initialization files in text format in their current form are not well suited to initializing and modifying the configuration of a complex set of users divided into different groups and subgroups where any single user can derive certain properties from the group or sub group to which he or she belongs to or have certain set of his or her own unique attributes. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0010] The present invention in one or more embodiments, describes a method for initializing and modifying the configuration of a complex set of users divided into different groups and subgroups possible in the framework of initialization files in text format using an extension of the format of an ini or an inf file as an example. This idea can very well be shown using similar extensions in other types of text based initialization files like config.sys, profile or XML files. In this method any single user can derive certain properties from the group or sub group to which he or she belongs to or have a certain set of his or her own unique attributes. Employing an initialization file in text format makes the usability simple and easy. At the same time, the extensions provided to the text based initialization file can deal with configuring a set of users belonging to a hierarchy of groups and subgroups easily. [0011] This invention, in one or more embodiments describes a method for initializing and modifying computer software configuration data for a complex set of users divided into different groups and subgroups where any single user can derive certain properties from the group or sub group to which he or she belongs to or have certain set of his or her own unique attributes. In at least one embodiment, an initialization file structure is used. The text based initialization file structure makes the usability simple and easy. At the same time, the extension of Ini file structure can deal with configuring a set of users belonging to a hierarchy of groups and subgroups easily. [0012] If we follow the current scheme of text based initialization file formats, the reason for them not being suitable to represent a set of users divided into groups and subgroups is: [0013] 1) It is not possible to give conditions under which a text based initialization file can have its contents imported by the software program it is supposed to configure. [0014] 2) It is not possible to link from one text based initialization file to the other. [0015] 3) There does not exist a scheme to parse multiple text based initialization files. [0016] By making the above conditions possible by extending the scheme of ini/inf files as an example, we automatically meet the requirement stated. [0017] This invention describes a simple method of specifying conditions in an extension to the ini file. The parsing software is designed to parse this text based initialization file only when the stated conditions are met. [0018] Similarly, this invention describes a method to link from one text based initialization file to a set of other text based initialization files. This implies that a configuration specific to a given set of conditions is grouped together in one text based initialization file. Different configurations are maintained in a set of text based initialization files. Subsequently, they are linked together appropriately so that they all can be traversed in a specific order. [0019] Thirdly, this invention describes a scheme to traverse multiple text based initialization files. In this scheme, the first file that is traversed is the root initialization file. A child initialization file is traversed if it has links from a parent initialization file and the conditions listed to parse the child initialization file are met. For optimization purpose, if an initialization file is already imported into the user settings and none of the conditions have changed or none of the contents of the initialization file has changed, the initialization file settings need not be imported at this time. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [0020] FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a multi-tier structure of users in an organization; [0021] FIG. 2 shows a diagram of a plurality of server computers and user computers networked together and refers to computer software used by one or more of the server computers or user computers; [0022] FIG. 3 shows a scheme of organization of multiple Ini files to meet the requirement of pushing different levels of preference in a multi-tier organization of users and their physical location; [0023] FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing different stages in deployment of user preferences in a multi-tier organization of users; Continue reading about Using hierarchical ini files to represent complex user settings in a multi user environment... 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