JPH07168744A - Information management device and control method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Abstract] [Purpose] It is possible to reduce the load on the device or system and suppress the increase of unnecessary objects. [Configuration] Object (information) is stored in the secondary storage device 105.
When registering in, set the validity period of the object. Then, an object identifier OID for identifying the object and an effective period table 20 for managing the effective period thereof.
8 is additionally stored. When performing garbage processing on an object, an object whose valid period has passed based on the contents stored in the valid period table 208 is deleted from the secondary storage device 105.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information management apparatus and a control method therefor, and more particularly to an information management apparatus and a control method therefor for garbage-processing objects in a database.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Normally, the garbage collection function of an object-oriented database provides a dedicated processing function in the database system and processes it in the background or foreground to eliminate unnecessary persistent objects (garbage). The information of the persistent object (for example, a document, an image, etc.) is found from the large-capacity secondary storage device such as a hard disk or a magneto-optical disk and is deleted from the management list of the database.

[0003]

However, the above-mentioned conventional example has the following problems because the garbage collection function of the object processing system acts so as to discover, release and delete the garbage.

(1) Processing for garbage collection is a burden on the system.

(2) In order to determine whether a persistent object that can be an element of a compound object is garbage, it is necessary to check whether the element of the compound object is an element of another compound object.

(3) Transaction processing must be performed in order to ensure that the elements and configuration of the composite object are not changed while determining whether the composite object composed of persistent objects is garbage.

(4) When the garbage collection is automatically performed by the system, the user cannot know the time when the garbage is erased.

Further, since the effective period cannot be specified for the object of the object processing system, there are the following drawbacks.

(5) The valid period cannot be specified for a persistent object that is valid only for a certain period.

(6) It is necessary to explicitly delete a persistent object that is unnecessary for a certain period before the period.

(7) The user cannot specify the time at which the secondary storage for creating / erasing the persistent object and the change to the system table are made.

[0012]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an information management apparatus capable of reducing the load on the apparatus or system and suppressing the increase of unnecessary objects. And its control method.

In order to solve this problem, the information management apparatus of the present invention has the following configuration. That is, in an information management device that stores and manages a plurality of pieces of information in a predetermined storage device, when information is stored and registered, a period setting unit that sets a valid period of the information and identification information that identifies the information to be registered. And a storage unit that stores the validity period of the information to be registered in association with each other, and a deletion unit that compares the information stored by the storage unit with the actual time of the system and deletes the registration information in the invalid period. With.

Further, the control method of the information management apparatus of the present invention comprises the following steps. That is, in a method of controlling an information management device that stores and manages a plurality of pieces of information in a predetermined storage device, when information is stored and registered, a period setting step of setting a valid period of the information and information to be registered are specified. The storage process of storing the identification information and the valid period of the registration target information in association with each other and the information stored by the storage process and the actual time of the system are compared to delete the registration information in the invalid period. And a deleting step to be performed.

[0015]

In the configuration or process of the present invention, when a certain information is to be registered, the validity period of the information to be registered is set. Then, the pair of valid periods in which the identification information of the registration target is set is stored and held. Then, based on the stored information, it is compared with the real time of the system, and the information in the invalid period is deleted.

[0016]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the information processing apparatus of the embodiment.

In the figure, 101 is an input device such as a keyboard or mouse, 102 is a central processing unit (hereinafter referred to as CPU) that controls the entire device, and 103 is a main storage device that loads programs and data used in the system. (Hereinafter referred to as RAM) 104 is a read-only memory (ROM) that stores a boot program executed when the CPU 102 is activated, font data, and the like. 105
Is a secondary storage device (here, a hard disk device) in which database data and a database processing program are stored, and this program is stored in the RAM 1
03 will be loaded and executed. 106 is
An output device such as a terminal or a printer.

FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram of the configuration when the database program having the above configuration is loaded in the RAM 103.

In the figure, 201 is a user program (requests processing to a database), 202 is an object processing system (internal processing mechanism 204 of database, management mechanism 205 of secondary storage device, management of effective period table). Mechanism 206, garbage collection management mechanism 20
7, 208 is a valid period table (a correspondence table of objects and valid periods) stored and held in the secondary storage device 105, and details will be described later.

In the above structure, the object processing system 202 and the user program 201 are constituted by the CPU 102, the RAM 103, etc. in FIG.

FIG. 3 shows an example of the effective period table 208 in FIG. In the figure, "object identifier (OID)" is information for uniquely identifying an object in the system. The "valid period" is time information indicating the valid period of the corresponding object, and holds information indicating when the object is valid. That is, within this period, the system guarantees the existence of the object, considers objects outside that period as garbage objects, and stores them in the secondary storage device 1.
It is shown to be released from 05 and deleted.

For example, the object identifier "OID1"
The object is 12:30 pm on April 17, 1989
It is shown that the valid period is from 2 seconds to 12:30 pm on September 10, 1990, and the information of the object is stored in the secondary storage device 203 during the valid period.

Further, the object having the object identifier "OID4" is valid during the entire valid period,
Unless explicitly erased, it is stored and held in the secondary storage device 203 and is not subject to garbage collection.

The OID2 and OID3 can be easily inferred from the above description.

The information of the validity period table 208 of FIG. 2 may be stored in the secondary storage device 203 of FIG. 2 separately from the data of the persistent object, or the information of the entire table may be secondary as one persistent object. It may be stored in the storage device 203. Further, the information in each persistent object may be saved in the secondary storage device 203 for each persistent object.

In the information of the valid period table 208, the first time may be omitted and only the time to be deleted may be designated. In this case, it is not possible to specify the (registration) time at which the information of the new object is written in the secondary storage device 203.

In the above configuration, for example, when registering new data (object) in the system,
Publicly known additional information (keyword, creator, and other information) is added to the object. At this point, the user instructs the input of the effective period (if necessary) for the object, and instructs the system to make a registration request.

FIG. 4 shows a processing procedure of the system which receives the registration request.

When a request for creating a persistent object is issued (step S401), it is checked whether the valid period of the object is designated (decision step S40).
2). If the valid period of the object is not specified (in the case of NO), the specified value of the system is used (step S403). For example, a certain period from the time of creating the system specified value can be set as the valid period of the object. Further, for example, the valid value (-∞ to + ∞) may be set such that the system specified value is not permanently deleted. These specified values may be set freely by the user (especially only permitted users) in the system environment settings, or the user may set individual specified values.

Next, a new OID identifier is obtained based on the number of the object identifier OID generated in the past (step S404). Then, the set of the object identifier OID and the valid period is additionally registered in the valid period table 208 (step S405).

Next, the object information of the persistent object is written in the secondary storage device 203 (step S
406).

Finally, the return value is returned to the source of the request to create the persistent object (step S407). This return value is information indicating whether or not the processing has proceeded normally, for example, whether or not the capacity for storing the object in the secondary storage device 105 has been secured.

As a result, in the database of the embodiment, as a general rule, the OID and its validity period information are created for each object.

Next, the contents of garbage collection processing in the embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

First, the garbage collection mechanism 207 selects one persistent object that can become garbage (step S501). For example, a table composed of object identifiers OIDs managed by the object processing system 202 (a table managed by the internal processing mechanism 204 of the database) may be searched and the object identifiers OIDs may be selected one by one in order (case 1) Alternatively, the object identifiers OID may be directly selected one by one from the valid period table 208 (case 2).

Next, the effective period table 208 is searched from the object identifier OID of the persistent object, and the effective period of the object is read (step S50).
2).

Then, the effective period of the persistent object is compared with the current time (including the date of course) held by the system, and it is determined whether the object is outside the effective period or within the effective period ( Step S503).

When it is determined that the validity period has expired (YES
In the case of), the corresponding persistent object is deleted and the corresponding part of the valid period table 208 is also deleted.

If the valid period has not passed (NO), the process ends.

As described above, according to this embodiment, each object has information indicating its own effective period, and dedicated information (file) composed of a pair of information specifying each object and the effective period. By holding the system, the burden on the system is reduced, and unnecessary objects can be quickly removed.
Moreover, it becomes possible to easily find out. Moreover, the number of garbage objects does not increase carelessly.

In the above example, the effective period table 208 includes
I remembered a pair of object ID and its validity period,
You may make it include the information which shows an object name and its existence position. In this case, the amount of information in the valid period table 208 is slightly larger than that in the above example, but the process of finding an object can be speeded up.

<Description of Other Embodiments> [Embodiment 2] Instead of using the effective period table 208 of FIG. 2 for the effective period of an object, the effective period is specified in the data of each persistent object. . The garbage collection mechanism 207 of the object processing system reads the valid period from each persistent object, and only the objects that have passed the valid period are subject to garbage collection. Garbage collection mechanism 2
In 07, the validity period is first investigated, and the object within the validity period is not considered as garbage and moves to the examination of the next object. Therefore, although the processing speed is slightly inferior to that in the above embodiment, garbage collection is performed. The processing can be reduced.

[Embodiment 3] In FIG. 4, when the effective period of an object is not specified, the system default value is explicitly set to "no effective period".

For example, in the case of "no effective period", nothing may be written in the effective period table 208. In this case, it is possible to prevent the effective period table 208 from increasing. Furthermore, garbage collection mechanism 2
07 is the first valid period table 208 to be subject to garbage collection
If the object identifier OID is selected from the above (“Case 2” above), the object of “No valid period” is automatically excluded from the target of garbage collection, and the object to be excluded from the target of garbage collection is “No validity”.
Can be created as

Further, for example, in the case of "no valid period", only the information indicating "no valid period" can be written in the valid period table 208. Whether or not the garbage collection mechanism 207 targets a persistent object of "no valid period" for garbage can be determined at the time of garbage collection processing. In this case, whether or not the object is valid is set at the time of the garbage collection process without explicitly setting the valid period of the object.

[Embodiment 4] In FIG. 4, when the valid period of an object is not designated, a default value of each class may be used. For example, if an object is created without specifying the valid period, a certain period from the time of creation is the valid period of the object. Since the default value can be changed for each class, fine control is possible. The default value of the class can be changed as a class variable. Also, the class object is made a persistent object and the secondary storage device 203 is used.
It is also possible to store all the instances of the class as garbage when the validity period of the class object itself has passed. Further, if the valid period of the class object is set to be a period including the valid periods of all the instances of the class, all the instances of the class are treated as garbage and the class object is also treated as the garbage.

[Embodiment 5] In a database that handles schema with a plurality of class versions, when only the difference information of each class and the information of the first version are stored, the validity period of a class object of a certain version has passed. At this point, when deleting the class object, an old version of the class object before the version of the class object may be merged to maintain the consistency of the schema.

[Sixth Embodiment] In the fifth embodiment, the class version number is used instead of the valid period of the class object, and when the version exceeds a certain number, the class objects before the version are merged and the unnecessary class is deleted. Objects and instances of unnecessary classes may be deleted.The maximum version number can be specified for each schema.If not specified, it can be the system default value or the default value for each schema. .

[Embodiment 7] When each class object is deleted at the time t when the validity period of a certain class has passed in the embodiment 5, the validity period is checked for all class objects of versions older than the version of the class object. However, merging and deletion are performed only when all the valid periods are before t.

[Embodiment 8] In the composite object,
When designating a valid period of a complex object, the valid period is checked for all objects that are elements of the complex object, the valid period I including the valid period of all elements and the valid period of the complex object is calculated, and all The valid period of the element and the valid period of the composite object may be set to the valid period I. In this way, the validity period of all the elements of the complex object and the validity period of the complex object become equal, so there is no need to check the validity period of all the objects that are elements of the complex object at the time of garbage determination. , It becomes possible to delete a compound object and all elements at the same time.

[Ninth Embodiment] In the eighth embodiment, when the effective period of a compound object is not specified, the effective period is inspected for all objects that are elements of the compound object, and the effective period including all the effective periods is checked. May be the effective period of the composite object.

[Embodiment 10] In Embodiment 8, when registering an element object in a compound object, the effective period of the element object is checked, and the effective period including all effective periods is set to the compound object and the element object. May be valid.

[Embodiment 11] In the case of a system that writes database information to the secondary storage device 203 at regular intervals, when the valid period of a persistent object is specified before the writing time and an attempt is made to create the object. ,
The persistent object is created as a temporary object that exists only in the main storage device 103, and the secondary storage device 203
It is also possible not to write in the valid period table 208. In this way, useless writing processing can be saved.

[Embodiment 12] In the case of a system having a plurality of secondary storage devices 203, they are stored in different secondary storage devices 203 for each valid period of an object, and all secondary storage devices 203 are stored after a certain period. The information may be deleted. For example, the secondary storage device 203 can be physically initialized. Further, it is possible to simply overwrite all the information in the secondary storage device 203 as meaningless information without erasing it. In this example, T consisting of “secondary storage device identifier, effective period” is prepared for the entire system, an effective period table 208 is prepared for each secondary storage device 203, and the object is stored in the secondary storage device 203. When the table T
The valid period I1 is read from the valid period I2, and when the valid period I2 of the object is included in the valid period I1, the valid period I2 is written to the secondary storage device. When the valid period I2 is not included, the valid period I3 including the valid periods I1 and I2 is read. I1 is calculated so as to minimize, the object is written to the corresponding secondary storage device, and I1 in the table T is changed to I3. In this way
The carving process mechanism can read the valid period from the table T and erase it in the secondary storage unit. In this example, since the data is erased in units of secondary storage devices, the valid period table 208 is also erased at the same time.

[Embodiment 13] In the case of the system in which the secondary storage device 203 is divided into a plurality of partitions and used in the embodiment 12, in units of partitions instead of in units of the secondary storage device, every effective period of each object The information in all the partitions is erased when a certain period of time is stored in another partition. Also, it is possible to simply overwrite all the information as meaningless information without erasing the partition information.

Although the present invention has been described with reference to object oriented databases, other databases are also contemplated.

The present invention may be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices or an apparatus composed of a single device. Further, it goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to the case where it is achieved by supplying a program to a system or an apparatus.

[0059]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to reduce the load on the system and suppress the increase of unnecessary objects (information).

[0060]

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block configuration diagram showing a configuration of an information processing apparatus of an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a configuration conceptual diagram of an information processing apparatus according to an embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing contents of a validity period table in the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a part of a processing procedure of a procedure of creating and registering a persistent object in the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the contents of processing in which the garbage collection mechanism selects garbage from persistent objects and deletes it.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 user program (requests processing to the database) 2 object processing system (performs internal processing of the database. Manages secondary storage and effective period and erases garbage) 3 secondary storage (database 4) Validity period table (correspondence table of objects and valid periods)

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ───

[Procedure amendment]

[Submission date] May 9, 1994

[Procedure Amendment 1]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Correction target item name] Full text

[Correction method] Change

[Correction content]

[Document name] Statement

Title: Information management apparatus and control method thereof

[Claims]

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information management apparatus and a control method therefor, and more particularly to an information management apparatus and a control method therefor for garbage-processing objects in a database.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Normally, the garbage collection function of an object-oriented database provides a dedicated processing function in the database system and processes it in the background or foreground to eliminate unnecessary persistent objects (garbage). The information of the persistent object (for example, a document, an image, etc.) is found from the large-capacity secondary storage device such as a hard disk or a magneto-optical disk and is deleted from the management list of the database.

[0003]

However, the above-mentioned conventional example has the following problems because the garbage collection function of the object processing system acts so as to discover, release and delete the garbage.

(1) Processing for garbage collection is a burden on the system.

(2) In order to determine whether a persistent object that can be an element of a compound object is garbage, it is necessary to check whether the element of the compound object is an element of another compound object.

(3) Transaction processing must be performed in order to ensure that the elements and configuration of the composite object are not changed while determining whether the composite object composed of persistent objects is garbage.

(4) When the garbage collection is automatically performed by the system, the user cannot know the time when the garbage is erased.

Further, since the effective period cannot be specified for the object of the object processing system, there are the following drawbacks.

(5) The valid period cannot be specified for a persistent object that is valid only for a certain period.

(6) It is necessary to explicitly delete a persistent object that is unnecessary for a certain period before the period.

(7) The user cannot specify the time at which the secondary storage for creating / erasing the persistent object and the change to the system table are made.

[0012]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an information management apparatus capable of reducing the load on the apparatus or system and suppressing the increase of unnecessary objects. And its control method.

In order to solve this problem, the information management apparatus of the present invention has the following configuration. That is, in an information management device that stores and manages a plurality of pieces of information in a predetermined storage device, when information is stored and registered, a period setting unit that sets a valid period of the information and identification information that identifies the information to be registered. And a storage unit that stores the validity period of the information to be registered in association with each other, and a deletion unit that compares the information stored by the storage unit with the actual time of the system and deletes the registration information in the invalid period. With.

Further, the control method of the information management apparatus of the present invention comprises the following steps. That is, in a method of controlling an information management device that stores and manages a plurality of pieces of information in a predetermined storage device, when information is stored and registered, a period setting step of setting a valid period of the information and information to be registered are specified. The storage process of storing the identification information and the valid period of the registration target information in association with each other and the information stored by the storage process and the actual time of the system are compared to delete the registration information in the invalid period. And a deleting step to be performed.

[0015]

In the configuration or process of the present invention, when a certain information is to be registered, the validity period of the information to be registered is set. Then, the pair of valid periods in which the identification information of the registration target is set is stored and held. Then, based on the stored information, it is compared with the real time of the system, and the information in the invalid period is deleted.

[0016]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the information processing apparatus of the embodiment.

In the figure, 101 is an input device such as a keyboard or mouse, 102 is a central processing unit (hereinafter referred to as CPU) that controls the entire device, and 103 is a main storage device that loads programs and data used in the system. (Hereinafter referred to as RAM) 104 is a read-only memory (ROM) that stores a boot program executed when the CPU 102 is activated, font data, and the like. 105
Is a secondary storage device (for example, a hard disk device or a magneto-optical disk device) in which database data and a database processing program are stored, and this program is loaded into the RAM 103 and executed. Reference numeral 106 is an output device such as a terminal or a printer.

FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram of the configuration when the database program having the above configuration is loaded in the RAM 103.

In the figure, 201 is a user program (requests processing to a database), 202 is an object processing system (internal processing mechanism 204 of database, management mechanism 205 of secondary storage device, management of effective period table). A mechanism 206 and a garbage collection mechanism 207) and 208 are valid period tables (object and valid period correspondence tables) stored and held in the secondary storage device 105, and details will be described later.

In the above structure, the object processing system 202 and the user program 201 are constituted by the CPU 102, the RAM 103, etc. in FIG.

FIG. 3 shows an example of the effective period table 208 in FIG. In the figure, "object identifier (OID)" is information for uniquely identifying an object in the system. The "valid period" is time information indicating the valid period of the corresponding object, and holds information indicating when the object is valid. In other words, if it is within this period, the system guarantees the existence of the object, considers the object outside that period as a garbage object, and stores it in the secondary storage device 1.
It is shown to be released from 05 and deleted.

For example, the object identifier "OID1"
The object is 12:30 pm on April 17, 1989
It is shown that the valid period is from 2 seconds to 12:30 pm on September 10, 1990, and the information of the object is stored in the secondary storage device 105 during the valid period.

Further, the object having the object identifier "OID4" is valid during the entire valid period,
Unless explicitly erased, it is stored and held in the secondary storage device 105 and is not subject to garbage collection.

The OID2 and OID3 can be easily inferred from the above description.

The information of the validity period table 208 of FIG. 2 may be stored in the secondary storage device 105 of FIG. 2 separately from the data of the persistent object, or the information of the entire table may be secondary as a single persistent object. It may be stored in the storage device 105. Further, the information in each persistent object may be stored in the secondary storage device 105 for each persistent object.

In the information of the valid period table 208, the first time may be omitted and only the time to be deleted may be designated. In this case, it is not possible to specify the time of writing (registering) the information of the new object in the secondary storage device 105.

In the above configuration, for example, when registering new data (object) in the system,
Publicly known additional information (keyword, creator, and other information) is added to the object. At this point, the user instructs the input of the effective period (if necessary) for the object, and instructs the system to make a registration request.

FIG. 4 shows a processing procedure of the system which receives the registration request.

When a request for creating a persistent object is issued (step S401), it is checked whether the valid period of the object is designated (decision step S40).
2). If the valid period of the object is not specified (in the case of NO), the specified value of the system is used (step S403). For example, a certain period from the time of creating the system specified value can be set as the valid period of the object. Further, for example, the valid value (-∞ to + ∞) may be set such that the system specified value is not permanently deleted. These specified values may be set freely by the user (especially only permitted users) in the system environment settings, or the user may set individual specified values.

Next, a new OID identifier is obtained based on the number of the object identifier OID generated in the past (step S404). Then, the set of the object identifier OID and the valid period is additionally registered in the valid period table 208 (step S405).

Next, the object information of the persistent object is written in the secondary storage device 105 (step S
406).

Finally, the return value is returned to the source of the request to create the persistent object (step S407). The return value is information indicating whether or not the processing has normally proceeded, for example, whether or not the capacity for storing the object in the secondary storage device 105 has been secured.

As a result, in the database of the embodiment, as a general rule, the object identifier OID and its validity period information are created for each object.

Next, the contents of garbage collection processing in the embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

First, the garbage collection mechanism 207 selects one persistent object that can become garbage (step S501). For example, a table composed of object identifiers OIDs managed by the object processing system 202 (a table managed by the internal processing mechanism 204 of the database) may be searched and the object identifiers OIDs may be selected one by one in order (case 1) Alternatively, the object identifiers OID may be directly selected one by one from the valid period table 208 (case 2).

Next, the effective period table 208 is searched from the object identifier OID of the persistent object, and the effective period of the object is read (step S50).
2).

Then, the effective period of the persistent object is compared with the current time (including the date of course) held by the system, and it is determined whether the object is outside the effective period or within the effective period ( Step S503).

When it is determined that the validity period has expired (YES
In the case of), the corresponding persistent object is deleted and the corresponding part of the valid period table 208 is also deleted.

If the valid period has not passed (NO), the process ends.

As described above, according to this embodiment, each object has information indicating its own effective period, and dedicated information (table) composed of a pair of information specifying each object and the effective period. By holding the system, the burden on the system is reduced, and unnecessary objects can be quickly removed.
Moreover, it becomes possible to easily find out. Moreover, the number of garbage objects does not increase carelessly.

In the above example, the effective period table 208 includes
Although the pair of the object identifier OID and its effective period is stored, information indicating the object name and its existing position may be included. In this case, the amount of information in the valid period table 208 is slightly larger than that in the above example, but the process of finding an object can be speeded up.

<Description of Other Embodiments> [Embodiment 2] Instead of using the effective period table 208 of FIG. 2 for the effective period of an object, the effective period is specified in the data of each persistent object. . The garbage collection mechanism 207 of the object processing system reads the valid period from each persistent object, and only the objects that have passed the valid period are subject to garbage collection. Garbage collection mechanism 2
In 07, the validity period is first investigated, and the object within the validity period is not considered as garbage and moves to the examination of the next object. Therefore, although the processing speed is slightly inferior to that in the above embodiment, garbage collection is performed. The processing can be reduced.

[Embodiment 3] In FIG. 4, when the effective period of an object is not specified, the system default value is explicitly set to "no effective period".

For example, in the case of "no effective period", nothing may be written in the effective period table 208. In this case, it is possible to prevent the effective period table 208 from increasing. Furthermore, garbage collection mechanism 2
07 is the first valid period table 208 to be subject to garbage collection
If the object identifier OID is selected from the above (“Case 2” above), the object of “No valid period” is automatically excluded from the target of garbage collection, and the object to be excluded from the target of garbage collection is “No validity”.
Can be created as

Further, for example, in the case of "no valid period", only the information indicating "no valid period" can be written in the valid period table 208. Whether or not the garbage collection mechanism 207 targets a persistent object of "no valid period" for garbage can be determined at the time of garbage collection processing. In this case, whether or not the object is valid is set at the time of the garbage collection process without explicitly setting the valid period of the object.

[Embodiment 4] In FIG. 4, when the valid period of an object is not designated, a default value of each class may be used. For example, if an object is created without specifying the valid period, a certain period from the time of creation is the valid period of the object. Since the default value can be changed for each class, fine control is possible. The default value of the class can be changed as a class variable. In addition, the class object is made a persistent object and the secondary storage device 105
It is also possible to store all the instances of the class as garbage when the validity period of the class object itself has passed. Further, if the valid period of the class object is set to be a period including the valid periods of all the instances of the class, all the instances of the class are treated as garbage and the class object is also treated as the garbage.

[Embodiment 5] In a database that handles schema with a plurality of class versions, when only the difference information of each class and the information of the first version are stored, the validity period of a class object of a certain version has passed. At this point, when deleting the class object, an old version of the class object before the version of the class object may be merged to maintain the consistency of the schema.

[Sixth Embodiment] In the fifth embodiment, the class version number is used instead of the valid period of the class object, and when the version exceeds a certain number, the class objects before the version are merged and the unnecessary class is deleted. Objects and instances of unnecessary classes may be deleted.The maximum version number can be specified for each schema.If not specified, it can be the system default value or the default value for each schema. .

[Embodiment 7] When each class object is deleted at the time t when the validity period of a certain class has passed in the embodiment 5, the validity period is checked for all class objects of versions older than the version of the class object. However, merging and deletion are performed only when all the valid periods are before t.

[Embodiment 8] In the composite object,
When designating a valid period of a complex object, the valid period is checked for all objects that are elements of the complex object, the valid period I including the valid period of all elements and the valid period of the complex object is calculated, and all The valid period of the element and the valid period of the composite object may be set to the valid period I. In this way, the validity period of all the elements of the complex object and the validity period of the complex object become equal, so there is no need to check the validity period of all the objects that are elements of the complex object at the time of garbage determination. , It becomes possible to delete a compound object and all elements at the same time.

[Ninth Embodiment] In the eighth embodiment, when the effective period of a compound object is not specified, the effective period is inspected for all objects that are elements of the compound object, and the effective period including all the effective periods is checked. May be the effective period of the composite object.

[Embodiment 10] In Embodiment 8, when registering an element object in a compound object, the effective period of the element object is checked, and the effective period including all effective periods is set to the compound object and the element object. May be valid.

[Embodiment 11] In the case of a system for writing database information to the secondary storage device 105 at a certain fixed period, when the object is created by designating the valid period of the persistent object before the writing time. ,
The persistent object is created as a temporary object that exists only in the main storage device 103, and the secondary storage device 105
It is also possible not to write in the valid period table 208. In this way, useless writing processing can be saved.

[Embodiment 12] In the case of a system having a plurality of secondary storage devices 105, they are stored in different secondary storage devices 105 for each valid period of an object, and all secondary storage devices 105 are stored after a certain period. The information may be deleted. For example, the secondary storage device 105 can be physically initialized. Further, the information in the secondary storage device 105 may be simply overwritten as meaningless information without being erased. In this example, a table T made up of "secondary storage device identifier, valid period" is prepared for the entire system,
A valid period table 208 is prepared for each secondary storage device 105, and when the object is stored in the secondary storage device 105, the valid period I1 is read from the table T, and the valid period I2 of the object is the valid period I1. If it is included in the secondary storage device, it is written in the secondary storage device.
And I2 are calculated so that the effective period I3 including I2 is minimized, the object is written in the corresponding secondary storage device, and I1 in the table T is changed to I3. In this way
The carvage processing mechanism reads the valid period from the table T,
It becomes possible to erase in units of secondary storage devices.
In this example, since the data is erased in units of secondary storage devices, the valid period table 208 is also erased at the same time.

[Embodiment 13] In the case of the system in which the secondary storage device 105 is divided into a plurality of partitions and used in the embodiment 12, a partition unit is used instead of a secondary storage device unit, and each object has a valid period. The information in all the partitions is erased when a certain period of time is stored in another partition. Also, it is possible to simply overwrite all the information as meaningless information without erasing the partition information. [Embodiment 14] In FIG. 4, when the valid time of a persistent object is designated and the first time t1 is omitted and only the time t2 to be deleted is designated, the first time t1 becomes the real time rt of the system. It is set automatically. Since the persistent object can be created by omitting the first time t1, the creation process can be simplified. In this example, if the time t2 to be deleted is specified to be before the real time rt of the system (t2 ≦ rt), even if the object creation processing is abnormally terminated and a return value indicating abnormality is returned. Alternatively (Case 3), the object creation process may be continued as it is and not written to the main storage device 103 (created as a temporary object) (Case 4), or the persistent object creation process may be performed. Then, an object may be created in the main storage device 103, written into the valid period table 208 and the secondary storage device 105, and erased as garbage during the garbage processing (case 5). [Embodiment 15] In FIG. 4, when the valid time of a persistent object is designated, the first time t1 is designated to be later than the real time rt of the system (t1 ≧ r
In t), the object creating process is continued without abnormal termination of the object creating process. Since a persistent object that becomes valid after the real time rt of the system can be specified, a persistent object that is valid only for a certain period can be created. In this example, when the object is created, the object is created in the main storage device 105, but is not written (created as a temporary object) in the valid period table 208 and the secondary storage device 105, and the system is actually created. Time rt
May be written in the valid period table 208 and the secondary storage device 105 at the time when the above coincides with the first time t1 (case 6), or the object is created in the main storage device 103 when the object is created. Alternatively, the validity period table 208 and the secondary storage device 105 may be written (case 7). In Case 7, since the first time t1 of the effective period can be set to be later than the real time rt of the system, the garbage collection mechanism 207 may regard the persistent object as garbage and delete it, It may not be considered as garbage and may not be deleted until the validity period ends.

Although the present invention has been described with reference to object oriented databases, other databases are also contemplated.

The present invention may be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices or an apparatus composed of a single device. Further, it goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to the case where it is achieved by supplying a program to a system or an apparatus.

[0059]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to reduce the load on the system and suppress the increase of unnecessary objects (information).

[0060]

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block configuration diagram showing a configuration of an information processing apparatus of an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a configuration conceptual diagram of an information processing apparatus according to an embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing contents of a validity period table in the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a part of a processing procedure of a procedure of creating and registering a persistent object in the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the contents of processing in which the garbage collection mechanism selects garbage from persistent objects and deletes it.

[Explanation of Codes] 101 Input Device 102 Central Processing Unit (CPU) 103 Main Storage Device (RAM) 104 Read Only Memory (ROM) 105 Secondary Storage Device (Saving Database Data) 106 Output Device 201 User Program (Requests processing to database) 202 Object processing system (performs internal processing of database. Manages secondary storage device and effective period,
(Erase garbage) 204 Internal processing mechanism of database 205 Management mechanism of secondary storage 206 Management mechanism of effective period length 207 Garbage collection mechanism 208 Effective period table (correspondence table of objects and effective period)

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Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A plurality of pieces of information are stored in a predetermined storage device,
In an information management device to be managed, when information is stored and registered, period setting means for setting an effective period of the information, identification information for specifying information to be registered, and an effective period of the information to be registered are stored in association with each other. An information management apparatus, comprising: a storage unit that stores the information and a deletion unit that compares the information stored in the storage unit with the actual time of the system and deletes the registered information in the invalid period. 2. A plurality of pieces of information are stored in a predetermined storage device,
In the control method of the information management device to be managed, when storing and registering information, the period setting process for setting the valid period of the information, the identification information for identifying the information to be registered, and the valid period of the information to be registered correspond to each other. An information management apparatus comprising: a storage step of additionally storing and a deletion step of comparing the information stored in the storage step with the actual time of the system and deleting the registered information in the invalid period. Control method.