United States Patent [191 Lubkin et al. [54] HETEROGENOUS SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT APPARATUS [75] Inventors: David C. Lubkin, Nashua; Douglas B. Robinson, Hollis, both of NH; Robert P. Chase, Jr., Newton, Mass; Paul J. Leach, Winchester, Mass; Daniel L. McCue, IH, Framingham, Mass; David B. Leblang, Wayland, Mass. [73] Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, Calif. 158,180 Nov. 24, 1993 [21] [22] Appl. No.: Filed: Related US. Application Data Continuation of Ser. No. 662,561, Feb. 28, 1991, aban doned. [63] [51] [52] Int. Cl.5 ............................................ .. G06F 15/20 US. Cl. .............................. .. 395/700; 395/200; 395/ 500; 364/280.4; 364/280.6; 364/284.4; 364/DIG. 1 Field of Search ............. .. 395/200, 500, 650, 700; 364/280.4, 280.6, 284.4 [53] [56] References Cited U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS Kossiakoff ........................ .. 395/700 4,315,315 2/1982 4,558,413 12/1985 4,667,290 5/1987 4,734,854 3/1988 4,809,170 2/1989 4,858,114 8/1989 4,951,192 8/1990 5,075,847 12/1991 5,084,813 1/1992 Ono ....................................... .. 395/1 OTHER PUBLICATIONS John Banning, “The XDOS Binary Code Conversion System”, IEEE, 1989, pp. 282-287. Adams et al., “SunPro: Engineering a Practical Pro gram Development Environment”, Proc. of Interna llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllIllllllllllllllllllllll USOO5339435A Patent Number: Date of Patent: 5,339,435 Aug. 16, 1994 [11] [45] tional Workshop on Advanced Prog. Environments, Jun. 1986, pp. 2-12. Leblang et al., “Computer-Aided Software Engineer ing in a Distributed Workstation Environment,” Proc. of ACM SIGSOFT/SIGPLAN, Apr. 1984, pp. 104-112. Comer, Douglas et al., “Shadow Editing: A Distributed Service for Supercomputer Access,” Presented at the 8th International Conference on Distributed Comput ing Systems, San Jose, Calif. (1988, Jun). Bicknell, Paul A., “Software Development and Con?g uration Management in the Cronus Distributed Operat ing System,” Proceedings of Conference on Software Maintenance-1988, Institute of Electrical and Electron ics Engineers, Phoenix, Ariz. (1988, Oct). ~Lubkin, David, “Heterogeneous Con?guration Man (List continued on next page.) Primary Examiner-Gareth D. Shaw Assistant Examiner—Dennis M. Butler [57] ABSTRACT A heterogeneous con?guration management tool ena bles building of a software system in a heterogeneous network of computers. In building a desired software system, the tool enables at least one component of the system to be translated by a foreign computer of the network and other components of the system to be translated by other computers of the network. A refer ence to a version indicator is passed to the foreign com puter to provide the foreign computer an indication of user-speci?ed version of the component being trans lated by the foreign computer. The reference is ex panded during processing on the foreign computer. Pathname transformation ?les are employed to provide transformation of a pathname in one computer of the network to a corresponding pathname in another com puter of a network. Binaries resulting from component translations are stored in split pools. In turn, split re leases of the built software system are enabled. 23 Claims, 7 Drawing Sheets HCM 'lOOI 17 Build manager 27 OS manager 39 System model 16 Configuration thread l8 R I Hos’ type ? ‘e l 9 elerence node 5d Builder list file 23 Command node 15a \ Foreign builder 130.13c Shell script 40 vswilch Object 25 Helper node l5b . vswitcn mgr 37 L'W'Y NFS server as L‘D'G'Y M915! INFS gateway node 15c \l \ szeglon 5‘ Derived abiect section 30 Pool 35 node [5 Foreign bullder l3b