METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR AUTOMATICALLY PURGING CODE OBJECTS BEING UPDATED BY DOWNLOAD

摘要

A method and system allow a system operator of a cable television system to control the management of multiple versions of a code object in set-top terminals connected to the television system. When the system operator signa ls the set-top terminals to download code objects from the signal provided over the cable system, the download instructions specify a version of the object to be acquired. If an object with the same identifier, but a different version thereof, is already in the set-top terminal's memory unit, the terminal can automatically purge that other version of the object from memory when downloading the object specified by the system operator. A dedicated flag in the download instruction message can be used to selectively activate and deactivate the automatic purge from memory of different versions of an objec t being downloaded.