JPH03191429A - Object control system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve the productivity of a software by allowing a message control part to transfer a message to a real object corresponding a virtual object by using a correspondence table between the virtual object and the real object. CONSTITUTION:An object A receives a message from a message control part 5, interpretes the message, and when the message is executable, returns a mes sage receiving signal, and starts a corresponding method. If the message can not be executed, the object A returns a message unreceiving signal and turned to a message reception waiting state. The method includes various instructions, and when an instruction for transmitting a message Y to an object X is includ ed, the object A requests a message control process so as to send the message Y to the object X, and after waiting the requesting result, turned to a message reception waiting state. The control part 5 requested from the object A to transmit the message Y to the object X retrieves a virtual object X in the corresponding table between the virtual objects and real objects after receiving the request.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to an object management method, and particularly to an object management method for an object-oriented application system.

[Conventional technology]

In conventional object-oriented application systems (for example, Nikkei Byte, June 1989 issue, pp. 135-146), when object A sends a message to object B, as shown in Figure 4, in the method of object A, instance variables are By writing the message rQQQ to be sent to C, and writing the name of object B in the instance variable C, the message was sent to object B.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, in this method, the relationships between objects are managed separately for each object, so when exchanging one object D with another object E, all objects sending messages to object D must be found. , the instance variables had to be modified, which took a lot of effort.

[Means to solve the problem]

In the object management method of the present invention, the method of each object is written in advance so as to send a message to a virtual object, all messages sent from each object are collected in a message management section, and the message management section is configured to send a message to a virtual object. The object is to transfer a message to a real object corresponding to a virtual object using a comparison table of objects and real objects.

〔Example〕

Next, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, each object and message management section 5 are in separate grosses,
Performing inter-process communication.

FIG. 2 shows the flow of this embodiment. First, object A receives a message from the message management unit 5, interprets the message, and if it is executable, returns a message acceptance signal and starts the corresponding method. However, if this is not possible, it returns a message non-acceptance signal and returns to the state of waiting for message reception. This method includes various instructions, but if it includes an instruction to send message Y to object X, it will ask the message management section process to send message Y to object X, Waiting for the result and returning to the message reception waiting state. The message management section, which is requested to send message Y from object A to object X, searches for virtual object X in the comparison table of virtual objects and real objects after receiving the message. If X is retrieved, the object Z corresponding to X in the comparison table is set to X again. On the other hand, when X is not retrieved, X is left as is.

Next, it sends message Y to object X, waits for an acceptance signal from object X, and returns an acceptance signal to object A. After that, it returns to the reception waiting state again.

FIG. 3 is an example in which the present invention is implemented in an animation system. First, the method of the object ``scenario'' is executed and sends a message rrunJ to the virtual object ``scenario''. The object management unit 5 refers to the virtual object/real object comparison table, interprets that "start" indicates the object "scene 1", and sends the message rrIJnJ to scene IJ. The object "Scene 1" that received the message executes its own method named rrtlnJ, but in the method there is a message "Laughing j" for the virtual object "Person J".
There is a statement that sends a message that
It is executed. Then, the object management unit 5 interprets that the virtual object "person" indicates the object "thick part" as before, and displays the object "thick part J".
Sends the message ``Laughing J.'' The object ``Fatabe'' starts a method named ``Laughing'' and displays an animation of Fatty laughing on the display screen.

In the same way, animations develop according to the story written in the object "scenario".

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, in the present invention, objects A and B can be exchanged by simply rewriting all the places where object A is written as object B in the comparison table of virtual objects and real objects.

Other objects sending messages to object A do not need to be changed. In accordance with the example of FIG. 3, if you want to replace the object ``Aobe'', which is a character in the animation, with another object ``Hanako'', change the item ``Person: Aobe J'' in the comparison table. All you have to do is rewrite it to ``Person: Hanako'' and there is no need to change the scenario or scene. By being able to easily exchange objects in this way, the component nature of the software increases and the productivity of the software increases.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration and information flow in an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a flowchart showing the processing procedure of an embodiment of the invention, and Fig. 3 is a diagram showing an example of the application of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing a method in a conventional object-oriented application system. 1...Object name, 2...Method, 3...
Virtual object/real object comparison table, 4. Instance variables, 5. Message management section.

Claims (1)

[Claims] In an object-oriented application system, all messages sent from objects are collected in a message management section, and the message management section uses a comparison table of virtual objects and real objects to correspond to the virtual object specified as the transfer destination of the above message. An object management method characterized by transferring messages to real objects.