Method and system for dispatching service requests to sub-applications

• US 7,257,819 B1
• Filed: 04/30/2001
• Issued: 08/14/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: GE Capital US Holdings, Inc. (General Electric Company)
• Original Assignee: General Electric Capital Corporation (General Electric Company)
• Inventors: Dixon, Walter III, Morrill, Daniel
• Primary Examiner(s): An; Meng-Al T.
• Assistant Examiner(s): ZHEN, LI B
• Application Number:
  US09/845,750
• Time in Patent Office: 2,297 Days
• Field of Search: 709/227, 718/102, 719/315, 719/330, 719/311, 719/316, 717/101
• US Class Current: 719/316
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications

Abstract

A dispatching system that uses a common interface to interface with all sub-applications, regardless of their logic models. The common interface provides a service method or routine that the dispatching system invokes to effect processing by the sub-application. Each sub-application implements the common interface and shares a common context with the other sub-applications. In one embodiment, the dispatching system receives requests (e.g., HTTP requests), identifies the sub-applications that should process the received requests, and invokes the service routines of the identified sub-applications to process the received requests. Each sub-application may have an associated match criteria that indicates when the sub-application should process the requests.

Claims

1. A method in a computer system for dispatching requests to perform services to sub-applications that use different logic models the method comprising:

providing a context for the sub-applications

receiving a request from a client computer to perform a service; and

for a plurality of sub-applications,

determining whether the received request should be dispatched to the sub-application; and

when it is determined that the request should be dispatched to the sub-application, invoking a service routine of the sub-application passing the request

whereby the sub-applications share the provided context;

wherein the determining includes determining whether a match criteria for the sub-application matches the received request;

wherein the requests are HTTP requests with a URL and the match criteria is a regular expression relating to the URL;

wherein a respective service routine is invoked for the request with respect to each of at least two of the sub-applications;

wherein the sub-applications are ordered and the invoking of the service routines of the at least two sub-applications is performed in the order of the sub-applications; and

wherein when it is determined that the request should not be dispatched to any sub-application, an error is logged.

2. A computer system for dispatching HTTP requests to sub-applications, comprising:

a configuration file having a class, initialization parameters, and a match criteria associated with the sub-applications;

an initialization component that instantiates an object of the class for each sub-application in the configuration file, the instantiated object being initialized with the initialization parameters for the sub-application and being provided with a context object, the context object being shared by the instantiated objects so that the sub-applications share a common context;

a dispatcher that receives HTTP requests from client computers and, when the received HTTP request matches a match criteria of a sub-application, invokes a service routine of the instantiated object of the class associated with the sub-application;

said dispatcher logging an error if the HTTP request does not match any match criteria;

a memory to store the configuration file, the initialization component, and the dispatcher; and

a processor to execute the configuration file, the initialization component, and the dispatcher;

wherein the match criteria is a regular expression relating to a URL of the HTTP request;

wherein a respective service routine is invoked for at least one of the HTTP requests with respect to each of at least two of the sub-applications; and

wherein the configuration file specifies an ordering of the sub-applications and the dispatcher invokes the service routines of the instantiated objects of the classes associated with the at least two sub-applications in the specified order.

3. A computer system for processing request messages, comprising:

a plurality of sub-applications forming an application, a sub-application having a match criteria indicating when the sub-application should process a request and having a service routine to invoke when the match criteria indicates that the sub-application should process the request, the sub-applications using disparate logic models;

a context for the application that is shared by the sub-applications;

a dispatcher that receives requests from client computers, evaluates the match criteria to identify which sub-applications have match criteria that match the requests, and invokes the service routines of the identified sub-applications wherein invoked sub-applications use the context;

a memory to store the plurality of sub-applications, the context and the dispatcher; and

a processor to execute the plurality of sub-applications, the context and the dispatcher;

wherein the requests are HTTP requests with a URL and the match criteria is a regular expression relating to the URL;

wherein a respective service routine is invoked for at least one of the requests with respect to each of at least two of the sub-applications; and

wherein the sub-applications are ordered and the dispatcher invokes the service routines of the at least two sub-applications based on the order of the sub-applications.

4. The computer system of claim 3 wherein an invoked service routine indicates that additional service routines should not be invoked to process the received request.

5. The computer system of claim 3 wherein the dispatcher does not invoke additional service routines when an invoked service routine responds to a received request.

6. A computer-readable medium having instructions for controlling a computer system to dispatch requests to perform services to service routines, comprising:

program means for receiving a request from a client computer to perform a service; and

for a plurality of service routines,

program means for retrieving a match criteria for the service routine;

program means for determining whether the received request matches the retrieved match criteria;

when it is determined that the request matches the retrieved match criteria, invoking the service routine for processing of the received request;

whereby the service routines form an application and share a common context;

wherein the requests are HTTP requests with a URL and the match criteria is a regular expression relating to the URL;

wherein at least one of the requests is processed by at least two of the service routines;

wherein the service routines are ordered and the invoking of the at least two service means is performed in the order of the service routines; and

wherein when it is determined that the request does not match any retrieved match criteria, an error is logged.