Computer system

• US 6,643,657 B1
• Filed: 05/05/1997
• Issued: 11/04/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 08/08/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Baird, Richard, Ogilvie, Alan
• Primary Examiner(s): JUNG, DAVID YIUK
• Application Number:
  US08/851,153
• Time in Patent Office: 2,374 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1-206, 395/200-1-2, 395/183.14, 395/683-712, 345/335-501, 709/218-226, 709/203-204, 846/22, 379/93.12
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/51 at application loading time, e.g. accepting, rejecting, starting or inhibiting executable software based on integrity or source reliability
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44526 Plug-ins; Add-ons
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99939 Privileged access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

A computer workstation attached to a network such as the Internet runs browser software to access and retrieve pages of data from over the network, with the pages of data then being displayed at the computer workstation. A page of data can include a reference to code which the browser can also retrieve from over the network and then execute on the computer workstation. The reference to the code also has associated with it a reference to another file, again accessible over the network, which contains information pertaining to the code itself, such as the size of the code. The browser accesses the information in this file, prior to retrieving or executing the code. This information helps determine whether or not to retrieve the code.

Claims

1. A method of operating a computer system attached to a network, comprising the steps of:

retrieving over said network at least one Web page of data;

parsing said at least one page of data to locate an applet tag which refers to applet code that is available over the network for execution at said computer;

locating, associated with said applet tag an identifier to a file containing information about said code, said information comprising a list of attribute values which describes said code;

retrieving the list of attributes;

making a decision based on the contents of the list of attributes as to whether said code should be retrieved; and

retrieving said code if said decision was made to retrieve the code.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of utilising said information in order to determine whether or not to run said code.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said identifier is in the form of a Universal Resource Locator (URL).

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising the step of presenting at least part of said information to the user of said computer in order to allow said user to determine whether or not to run said code.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising the step of comparing at least part of said information against one or more predetermined criteria to determine whether or not to run said code.

6. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein said at least one page of data is in html format.

7. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein said computer runs a Web browser to access said at least one page of data, and said reference is in the form of a Universal Resource Locator (URL).

8. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the information is stored in a form conforming to the Management Information Format (MIF).

9. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the information is stored in a remote database, and said step of retrieving the information comprises remotely interrogating said database over the network.

10. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein said information includes the size of said code.

11. A computer system, attachable to a network comprising:

means for retrieving over said network at least one page of Web data;

means for parsing said at least one page of data to locate an applet tag which refers to applet code that is available over the network for execution at said computer;

means for locating, associated with said applet tag, an identifier to a file containing information about said code, said information comprising a list of attribute values which describes said code;

means for retrieving the list of attributes;

means for making a decision based on the contents of the list of attributes as to whether said code should be retrieved; and

means for retrieving said code if said decision was made to retrieve the code.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising means for utilising said information in order to determine whether or not to run said code.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein said identifier is in the form of a Universal Resource Locator (URL).

14. The system of claim 12, further comprising means for presenting at least part of said information to the user of said computer in order to allow said user to determine whether or not to run said code.

15. The system of claim 12, further comprising means for comparing at least part of said information against one or more predetermined criteria to determine whether or not to run said code.

16. The system of claim 11 or 12, wherein said at least one page of data is in html format.

17. The system of claim 11 or 12, wherein said computer runs a Web browser to access said at least one page of data, and said reference is in the form of a Universal Resource Locator (URL).

18. The system of claim 11 or 12, wherein the information is stored in a form conforming to the Management Information Format (MIF).

19. The system of claim 11 or 12, wherein the information is stored in a remote database, and said means for retrieving the information comprises means for remotely interrogating said database over the network.

20. The system of claim 11 or 12, wherein said information includes the size of said code.

21. A computer program product for execution by a computer system attached to a network comprising:

means for retrieving over said network at least one Web page of data;

means for parsing said at least one page of data to locate an applet tag which refers to applet code that is available over the network for execution at said computer;

means for locating, associated with said applet tag, an identifier to a file containing information about said code, said information comprising a list of attribute values which describes said code;

means for retrieving the list of attributes;

means for making a decision based on the contents of the list of attributes as to whether said code should be retrieved; and

means for retrieving said code if said decision was made to retrieve the code.

22. The computer program product of claim 21, further comprising means for utilising said information in order to determine whether or not to run said code.

23. The computer program product of claim 21, further comprising the means for using said reference to retrieve the code over the network.

24. The computer program product of claim 23, further comprising means for executing the retrieved code at the computer.

25. The computer program product of claim 22, further comprising means for presenting at least part of said information to the user of said computer in order to allow said user to determine whether or not to run said code.

26. The computer program product of claim 22 or 25, further comprising means for comparing at least part of said information against one or more predetermined criteria to determine whether or not to run said code.

27. The computer program product of claim 21, or 24, wherein the information is stored in a file, and said means for retrieving the information about the code comprises means for copying the file onto said computer.

28. The computer program product of claim 27, wherein the information is stored in a form conforming to the Management Information Format (MIF), and said computer program product further includes means for loading the MIF information into the MIF database at the computer.

29. The computer program product of claim 28, further comprising means for interrogating said MIF database to access the loaded MIF information.

30. The computer program product of claim 21 or 24, wherein the information is stored in a remote database, and said means for retrieving the information comprises means for remotely interrogating said database over the network.

31. A method of operating a Web server attached to the Internet comprising the steps of:

receiving a request from a Web browser for a Web page of data located at the Web server;

returning the requested page of data to the Web browser; and

including within the requested page an applet tag including (i) a reference to an applet and (ii) an identifier of a file containing information about said applet, said information comprising a list of attribute values which describes said applet, the attribute values being useful by the Web browser in deciding whether the applet should be requested.