| 摘要 |
A software system for virtualizing arbitrary data, permitting a program to operate upon data of a format other than it is designed. This provides a novel solution to the problem the quickly approaching turn of the century will have on software system that were not designed to handle dates beyond the year 2000. The item of data come from any type of data source such as data files or computer screen memory. The present invention operates by serving a link between the program conversion process (element 44 and 46) and the data file conversion process. The present invention assumes control each time a converted program (element 30) reads or writes a record of a data file that has not yet been converted. Converting records during I/O operations, enables a converted program to access an unconverted data file as if it were converted. The invention converts the data fields in a record to a new format (element 40) that is implementation specific before passing it on to the program. In the converted program, the data is defined in the new format which the program expects to see. Unconverted programs (element 28) continue to access the actual unconverted data file (element 32). Thus, the present invention provides the converted program with a virtual converted view of an unconverted data file, the invention similarly converts data having the desired format to data having the old format before writing records to an unconverted data file. |
