System and method for using virtual directories to service URL requests in application servers

• US 20030140115A1
• Filed: 01/17/2003
• Published: 07/24/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 01/18/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: BEA Systems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Mehra, Vinod
• Granted Patent: US 7,552,189 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/217
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/547 Remote procedure calls [RPC]; Web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

The invention provides a system and method for providing virtual directories for servlets, particularly for use by many different Web applications that share common files and resources, and that are intended for providing those resources to large numbers of users. Virtual directories provide a mechanism for automatically changing the root folder from the default Web application (webapp) root document folder (docroot) to a virtual directory or folder, in response to certain http/URL requests. The purpose of the feature is to allow the developer to configure different document roots for certain requests. By doing this they can direct certain kind of requests (particularly those for common resources) to a common document root. Virtual directories ensure that common resources do not have to be copied for all web applications separately, and the burden on the server itself is minimized.

Claims

1. A system for using virtual directories to respond to uniform resource indicator requests in application servers, comprising:

an application server including a servlet container for receiving uniform resource indicator requests;

a resource directory containing shared resources; and

,

a configuration file for specifying a virtual directory to be mapped to said resource directory and to be used in responding to said uniform resource indicator request.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein said uniform resource indicator requests are received from a user operating a web browser application.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein said uniform resource indicator requests are received from a software application.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the configuration file is an extensible markup language file containing a plurality of entries defining the configuration of the application server environment.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the virtual directory is specified as an entry in the extensible markup language file.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the application server is a weblogic server and said extensible markup language file is the weblogic.xml file.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the virtual directory is specified as an entry in the configuration file, and wherein said entry includes a local-path element for specifying a physical location on a disk at which the shared resource is stored, and a uri-pattern element for specifying the pattern of the uniform resource indicator request received by the web server component.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein a plurality of virtual directories can be mapped to a single resource directory

9. The system of claim 1 wherein said plurality of virtual directories are accessible by a plurality of different servlet applications, and wherein each servlet application uses it'"'"'s own virtual directory to access the resource directory.

10. The system of claim 7 wherein the virtual directories'"'"'s local path is an actual directory.

11. The system of claim 7 wherein the virtual directories'"'"'s local path is a JAR file.

12. A method of using virtual directories to respond to uniform resource indicator requests in application servers, comprising the steps of:

receiving uniform resource indicator requests at a servlet container for use by an application server;

identifying using a configuration file a resource directory to be used;

mapping said resource directory to a virtual directory; and

,

communicating content from said resource directory to said servlet using a mapping of said virtual directory.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein said uniform resource indicator requests are received from a user operating a web browser application.

14. The method of claim 12 wherein said uniform resource indicator requests are received from a software application.

15. The method of claim 12 wherein the configuration file is an extensible markup language file containing a plurality of entries defining the configuration of the application server environment.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the virtual directory is specified as an entry in the extensible markup language file.

17. The method of claim 12 wherein the application server is a weblogic server and said extensible markup language file is the weblogic.xml file.

18. The method of claim 12 wherein the virtual directory is specified as an entry in the configuration file, and wherein said entry includes a local-path element for specifying a physical location on a disk at which the shared resource is stored, and a uri-pattern element for specifying the pattern of the uniform resource indicator request received by the web server component.

19. The method of claim 12 wherein a plurality of virtual directories can be mapped to a single resource directory

20. The method of claim 12 wherein said plurality of virtual directories are accessible by a plurality of different servlet applications, and wherein each servlet application uses it'"'"'s own virtual directory to access the resource directory.

21. The method of claim 18 wherein the virtual directories'"'"'s local path is an actual directory.

22. The method of claim 18 wherein the virtual directories'"'"'s local path is a JAR file.