Web client-server system and method for incompatible page markup and presentation languages

• US 6,609,150 B2
• Filed: 12/21/2001
• Issued: 08/19/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Siebel Systems Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Siebel Systems Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Mukundan, Anil, Lee, King-Hwa, Cram, Robert
• Primary Examiner(s): VU, VIET D
• Application Number:
  US10/024,524
• Publication Number:
  US 20020120719A1
• Time in Patent Office: 606 Days
• Field of Search: 709/217, 709/219, 709/313, 709/328, 709/329, 709/230
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication

Abstract

Client-server systems and methods for transferring data via a network, including a wireless network, between a server and one or more clients or browsers that are spatially distributed (i.e., situated at different locations). At least one local client computer provides a user interface to interact with at least one remote server computer which implements data processing in response to the local client computer. The user interface may be a browser or a thin client.

Claims

1. A method in a client-server system in which a server is configured to receive requests from a client and send responses to the client, comprising:

interpreting the request to determine at least one of a language, protocol, or syntax in which the client sends requests and receives responses;

interpreting the request to determine data submitted by the client, wherein said data is used to create, modify, delete, or append to objects or user data in the server system; and

creating a response in said language, protocol, or syntax of the client, wherein said response is representative of the state of an object in the server system following the processing of the request.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein interpreting the request to determine data submitted by the client comprises:

interpreting the request to determine the classes and instances of said objects and user data to associate with the request; and

interpreting the request to determine commands to be executed by said objects.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

embedding information in early responses to the client;

including said information in subsequent requests from the same client; and

using said information by the server during the processing of subsequent requests.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the request includes one or more tokens specifying said language, protocol, or syntax of the client.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the client request further includes tokens that specify instances of object types specified in the metadata repository to be created, modified, or deleted.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein part of the metadata associated with an object is in the form of one or more template objects, said template objects containing rules for representing the object in various languages, protocols, or syntaxes.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein interpreting the request to determine at least one of a language, protocol, or syntax comprises reading data embedded in header responses.

8. In a client-server system wherein a server is configured to receive requests from a client and send responses to the client, computer executable software code comprising:

code to interpret the request to determine at least one of a language, protocol, or syntax in which the client sends requests and receives responses;

code to interpret the request to determine data submitted by the client, wherein said data is used to create, modify, delete, or append to objects or user data in the server system; and

code to create a response in said language, protocol, or syntax of the client, wherein said response is representative of the state of an object in the server system following the processing of the request.

9. The software code of claim 8, further comprising code to recover metadata from a metadata repository associated with the server.

10. The software code of claim 8, wherein said code to interpret the request to determine data submitted by the client comprises:

code to interpret the request to determine the classes and instances of said objects and user data to associate with the request; and

code to interpret the request to determine commands to be executed by said objects.

11. The software code of claim 8, further comprising code to recover user data or business data from database servers or application servers associated with the server.

12. The software code of claim 8, further comprising code to embed information in early responses to the client, wherein said information is included in subsequent requests from the same client and wherein said information is used by the server during the processing of subsequent requests.

13. The software code of claim 8, wherein the server response is in the form of an object intended for display in a client with a user interface.

14. The software code of claim 8, wherein said object comprises a page.

15. The software code of claim 13, wherein the client comprises a browser.

16. The software code of claim 8, wherein the request includes one or more tokens specifying said language, protocol, or syntax of the client.

17. The software code of claim 16, wherein at least one of said tokens identify metadata objects that are available to the server system.

18. The software code of claim 17, wherein said metadata objects are selected from the group consisting of views, pages, applets, controls, and objects, said objects having user interface semantics.

19. The software code of claim 17, wherein said metadata objects are selected from the group consisting of business objects, business components, and objects having non-interface semantics.

20. The software code of claim 19, wherein said metadata objects having non-interface semantics are selected from the group consisting of linkages to other objects, containment, and association.

21. The software code of claim 20, wherein said association comprises a user interface representation.

22. The software code of claim 16, wherein the client request further includes tokens that specify instances of object types specified in the metadata repository to be created, modified, or deleted.

23. The software code of claim 17, wherein part of the metadata associated with an object is in the form of one or more template objects, said template objects containing rules for representing the object in various languages, protocols, or syntaxes.

24. The software code of claim 23, wherein said template object is stored as a file in the server file system.

25. The software code of claim 23, wherein said template object as a binary object in a database or other on-line storage system.

26. The software code of claim 23, wherein each template object is associated with a particular language, protocol, or syntax.

27. The software code of claim 23, wherein said code to interpret the request to determine at least one of a language, protocol, or syntax comprises code to use a template object associated with said language, protocol, or syntax, to represent an instance of the parent metadata object to the client.

28. The software code of claim 27, further comprising code to iterate and enumerate child or subordinate objects.

29. The software code of claim 27, wherein at least one of said rules pertains to containment.

30. The software code of claim 27, wherein at least one of said rules comprises a placeholder for specific properties of the metadata object.

31. The software code of claim 27, wherein at least one of said rules includes a specifier of a language or protocol for representation of an instance of the metadata object.

32. The software code of claim 27, wherein at least one of said rules comprises constants or literals to enable the representation of portions of the metadata object without processing by the server system beyond inserting the constants or literals into the body of a response to client requests.

33. The software code of claim 27, wherein at least one of the rules includes multiple variants, each specifying a different language, protocol, or syntax.

34. The software code of claim 33, further comprising code to assign a default value to said language, protocol, or syntax.

35. The software code of claim 8, wherein said code to interpret the request to determine data submitted by the client comprises code to recognize a client preferred markup language is a markup language.

36. The software code of claim 35, wherein the markup language is selected from the group consisting of SGML, HTML, WML, HDML, and XML.

37. The software code of claim 36, wherein the response can be created in multiple markup languages.

38. The software code of claim 37, wherein said code to interpret the request to determine data submitted by the client further comprises code to use similarities among various markup languages, to optimize the creation of the response in the different markup languages.

39. The software code of claim 38, wherein one markup language is derived from another markup language, and wherein said code to interpret the request to determine data submitted by the client further comprises code to use common components or procedures that represent metadata objects in the parent language.

40. The software code of claim 39, wherein said code to interpret the request to determine data submitted by the client further treats two or more markup languages as being derived from an artificially constructed markup language.

41. The software code of claim 40, wherein the derivation structure of the languages includes more than one layer of derivation.

42. The software code of claim 40, wherein an artificial language occupies a position in the derivation structure between one or more known languages.

43. The software code of claim 38, wherein the properties of a metadata object that are identified by placeholders in the templates have different representations in different languages, protocols, or syntaxes, and wherein this object is represented in the language of the client.

44. The software code of claim 43, wherein said code to interpret the request to determine at least one of said language, protocol, or syntax comprises code to identify the client'"'"'s language, protocol, or syntax, and associate it with the current client request.

45. The software code of claim 44, wherein said code to interpret the request to determine at least one of said language, protocol, or syntax comprises code to query the current context for the preferred language, protocol, or syntax, and use this preference to create the response including representations of objects in the preferred language, protocol, or syntax.

46. The software code of claim 8, wherein said code to interpret the request to determine at least one of said language, protocol, or syntax comprises code to identify the preferred language, protocol, or syntax of the client, receiving data from the client and using the data to add, modify, or delete records in the server database.

47. The software code of claim 46, wherein the preferred language is associated with encoding of the data, and wherein said code to interpret the request to determine at least one of said language, protocol, or syntax further comprises code to remove this language-dependent encoding, and to store the data in a language independent format.

48. The software code of claim 47, wherein the format is persistently associated with the data.

49. The software code of claim 8, wherein tags specifying the language of the request are embedded in the request.

50. The software code of claim 8, wherein the client is an HTML browser and the language corresponding to the client is HTML.

51. The software code of claim 8, wherein the client is a HTTP browser or wireless device and the language corresponding to this client is WML.

52. The software code of claim 8, wherein the language for the client to be used to create the response from the server system is XML.

53. The software code of claim 8, where the language for the client to be used to create the response from the server system is a language which does not include user interface elements.

54. The software code of claim 8, wherein the client comprises a wireless client configured to send requests incorporating tagged requests for pages to the server and receive pages from the server, said tagged requests specifying the language of the request and of the requested response, and wherein said software code further comprises:

code to parse the tagged request from the client to determine the language of the request and the information requested;

code to recover information including views from a repository associated with the server; and

code to render a page to the client including information and views in the language of the request, wherein said view comprises a display and applets in the language requested by the client.

55. The software code of claim 54, wherein said view further comprises data from the server.

56. The software code of claim 8, wherein the client request specifies a directory on the server system, and said directory is associated with the language, protocol, or syntax associated with the client.

57. The software code of claim 8, wherein said code to interpret the request to determine at least one of a language, protocol, or syntax comprises code to read data embedded in header responses.

58. The software code of claim 55, wherein said code to interpret the request to determine at least one of a language, protocol, or syntax further comprises code to embed information included in one or more of URIS, URLs, or URNS in the server responses, and where the client is configured to use the one or more of URIS, URLs, or URNS to submit further requests to the server.

59. The software code of claim 8, wherein said code to interpret the request to determine at least one of a language, protocol, or syntax further comprises code to interpret an early request from a client as a persistent preference for language, protocol, or syntax, and to store this preference and use the stored preference to retrieve the language, protocol, or syntax preference of the client from the dictionary or other cache.