Context Awareness

 If the mobile code moves to a new host and the adaptor classes decide to adapt the implementation classes, the context awareness must inspect the environment and deliver the name of the right implementation class to a given functionality interface.

E.g. the mobile code intends to execute getPhysicalMemorySize() of a IMemory_Adaptor object. The adaptor class decides to adapt the implementation class and the adaptation contacts the context awareness in order to get the name of an implementation class of the implementation group IMemory.

For this decision the context awareness needs following information:

1.

the description of the local environment, where the mobile code executes at present, denoted as environment profile

2.

the descriptions of the suitable environments of all implementation classes belonging to the implementation group, denoted as implementation profiles

3.

the function for comparing the environment profile with the implementation profiles

For the comparison of the environment profile with the implementation profiles the equality is not sufficient. If an implementation class has a requirement like e.g. at least version 1.0 of the operating system, all operating systems higher than 1.0 and not only exactly version 1.0 work fine for the implementation class. E.g. in the example of the web browser the Configuration_UX_NETSCAPE class is suitable for UNIX operating systems and not only for e.g. Linux . In this case strict equality would not be sufficient.