method and system for controlling access to objects in an application for processing data objects in hierarchical structure

摘要

A method and system for controlling the access to the objects in an object oriented data processing application, with said objects being hierarchically structured and either locally available or retrievable from an external unit. A dependent object counter holds in each object the existence or the number of dependent objects associated to said object; if at least one dependent object is non-locally available, a dummy object is appended to said object, enabling the object expansion even if the dependent objects of the selected object are not yet locally available in memory. When the user selects an object, the dummy object is replaced by one or more symbols indicating the non-locally availability of the dependent objects. The objects to be retrieved from the external unit are locked, while access is allowed to the locally available dependent objects. IMAGE