Preservation of type information between a client and a server

• US 8,032,657 B2
• Filed: 12/27/2005
• Issued: 10/04/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/12/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Yang, Ting-hao, Hawkins, Jonathan, Ebbo, David, Kothari, Nikhil, Niyogi, Shanku Shivabrata
• Primary Examiner(s): Chankong; Dohm
• Assistant Examiner(s): Rodriguez; Yanet
• Application Number:
  US11/319,285
• Publication Number:
  US 20070078946A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,107 Days
• Field of Search: 709/217
• US Class Current: 709/246
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/548 Object oriented; Remote method invocation [RMI] non-remote method invocation G06F9/449
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/133 Protocols for remote procedure calls [RPC]

Abstract

In a distributed computing system containing multiple entities such as servers and clients, an object passed between the entities is attached with metadata identifying the type of the object and/or types and values of properties associated with the object. Before the object is passed to an entity in the distributed computing system, the object may be serialized into a data format that the receiving entity can understand.

Claims

1. In a distributed computing system including at least one server component (“

server”

) and at least one client component (“

client”

), a computer-implemented method for preserving type information of a server object that is passed from the server to the client, comprising;

receiving a service request from a client computer system, the service request including a request for an indication of those services provided by the server;

creating a server object including an indication of those services provided by the server, wherein the server object includes a special token that includes one or more portions of specialized syntax in a special token format that identify the type information associated with the server object and one or more values of properties associated with the server object, wherein the special token is included as part of a client-side service definition that defines the parameters and methods of the client-side service;

associating the server object with at least a portion of type information and at least a portion of property information corresponding to the server object, the property information including one or more property values;

verifying that the server object is of a specified registered type, wherein only specific object types are allowed to be passed between the server and the client, preventing clients from manufacturing and passing malicious or other arbitrary objects to the server;

serializing the server object using a custom serialization method that changes the format of the server object according to one or more specified object receiver settings, such that object property names are changed to comply with formats accessible by the object receiver;

passing each of the following to the client;

the verified, serialized server object including the type information and the property information, the custom serialization method, a server custom serialization mechanism and a client custom deserialization mechanism; and

receiving from the client a modified server object, wherein the client has used both the custom serialization method and the client custom deserialization mechanism to deserialize the serialized server object, and has modified the server object by instantiating a new client object using the same type information and property information as the server object while changing at least one of the property values, and wherein the client passes the newly instantiated client object to the server by making a call for a method of the server service using the new client object as a parameter to the method.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the server object is further associated with one or more properties and their corresponding types and values.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the type information of the server object is included in a special token.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the service request is for a service exposed by the server, and wherein the call induces the server to execute the service to generate the server object.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein information regarding the service is included in a proxy class, which is provided to the client when the client requests the proxy class.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the proxy class defines the service and the type information associated with the server object.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing a custom serialization method that serializes the server object, along with any associated information, into a data format that is recognizable by the client.

8. In a distributed computing system including at least one server component (“

server”

) and at least one client component (“

client”

), wherein the server provides at least one service for the client, a computer-implemented method for preserving type information of a client object passed from the client to the server, comprising;

sending a service request to the server computer system, the service request including a request for an indication of those services provided by the server;

creating the client object;

associating the client object with at least a portion of type information and at least a portion of property information corresponding to the client object, the property information including one or more property values;

verifying that the client object is of a specified registered type, wherein only specific object types are allowed to be passed between the server and the client, preventing clients from manufacturing and passing malicious or other arbitrary objects to the server;

serializing the client object using a custom serialization method that changes the format of the client object according to one or more specified object receiver settings, such that object property names are changed to comply with formats accessible by the object receiver;

sending each of the following to the server;

the verified, serialized client object, wherein the client object is associated with the type information and property information of the client object, the custom serialization method, a client custom serialization mechanism and a server custom deserialization mechanism;

receiving from the server a verified server object that includes type information and the property information; and

sending a modified server object to the server, wherein the client has used both the custom serialization method and the client custom deserialization mechanism to deserialize the serialized server object, and has modified the server object by instantiating a new client object using the same type information and property information as the server object while changing at least one of the property values, and wherein the client passes the newly instantiated client object to the server by making a call for a method of the server service using the new client object as a parameter to the method, and wherein the server object includes a special token that includes one or more portions of specialized syntax in a special token format that identify the type information associated with the server object and one or more values of properties associated with the server object, wherein the special token is included as part of a client-side service definition that defines the parameters and methods of the client-side service.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein creating the client object includes instantiating the client object with type information of a server object received by the client.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the server object is associated with one or more properties and their corresponding types and values.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

associating the client object with the one or more properties and their corresponding types and values of the server object.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

modifying the corresponding values of the one or more properties before associating them with the client object.

13. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

serializing the client object and its associated information into a data format that is recognizable by the server.

19. The method of claim 8, further comprising embedding a link to the proxy class in the client, such that the client can access the proxy class using the link before receiving a proxy class from the server.

14. In a distributed computing system including at least one server component (“

server”

) and at least one client component (“

client”

), a computer-implemented method for serializing an object passed between the server and the client, comprising;

receiving a service request from a client computer system, the service request including a request for an indication of those services provided by the server;

creating a server object including a proxy class configured to provide a description of one or more server services and an indication of how to call the described services, wherein the server object includes a special token that includes one or more portions of specialized syntax in a special token format that identify the type information associated with the server object and one or more values of properties associated with the server object, wherein the special token is included as part of a client-side service definition that defines the parameters and methods of the client-side service;

associating the server object with at least a portion of type information and at least a portion of property information corresponding to the server object, the property information including one or more property values;

serializing the server object that is to be passed to the client, using a custom serialization method that changes the format of the server object according to one or more specified object receiver settings, such that object property names are changed to comply with formats accessible by the object receiver;

verifying that the server object is of a specified registered type, wherein only specific object types are allowed to be passed between the server and the client, preventing clients from manufacturing and passing malicious or other arbitrary objects to the server;

passing each of the following to the client;

the verified serialized server object including the type information and the property information, the custom serialization method, a server custom serialization mechanism and a client custom deserialization mechanism;

receiving from the client a modified server object, wherein the client has used both the custom serialization method and the client custom deserialization mechanism to deserialize the serialized server object, and has modified the server object by instantiating a new client object using the same type information and property information as the server object while changing at least one of the property values, and wherein the client passes the newly instantiated client object to the server by making a call for a method of the server service using the new client object as a parameter to the method, the modified server object further including an indication from the client requesting calling a specified service, the client having examined the proxy class to determine which of the server'"'"'s service methods to call; and

providing the requested service to the client.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the custom serialization method uses a client custom serialization mechanism identifying the data format recognized by the client.

16. The method of claim 14, further includes:

passing the serialized server object to the client, along with the custom serialization method, so that the client can use the custom serialization method to serialize a client object that is to be passed to the server.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

passing to the client a server custom serialization mechanism identifying a data format recognized by the server, wherein the custom serialization method will use the server custom serialization mechanism to serialize the client object into the data format recognized by the server.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein the object, after being serialized, is being reformatted before being passed off to a component, the method further comprising:

providing a deserialization mechanism for the component receiving the object to deserialize the serialized object.

20. The method of claim 14, wherein the server object is serialized with the server object'"'"'s original property names.