Structured content item synchronization

• US 9,053,165 B2
• Filed: 09/27/2013
• Issued: 06/09/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/08/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Inventors: van Rossum, Guido
• Primary Examiner(s): LE, HUNG D
• Application Number:
  US14/040,584
• Publication Number:
  US 20150012488A1
• Time in Patent Office: 620 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/00 Error detection; Error correction; Monitoring error detection, correction or monitoring in information storage based on relative movement between record carrier and transducer G11B20/18; monitoring, i.e. supervising the progress of recording or reproducing G11B27/36; in static stores G11C29/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1767 Concurrency control, e.g. optimistic or pessimistic approaches
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/273 Asynchronous replication or reconciliation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/275 Synchronous replication
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/101 Collaborative creation, e.g. joint development of products or services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes

Abstract

A content management system defines a synchronization application programming interface (API) used by applications executing on client devices to synchronize content items after the content items are changed. Functions of the API specify changes to the content items in terms of semantically-meaningful locations within the content items, rather than physical file locations. The content management system can represent the state of a content item in terms of change descriptors that reference the semantic locations of the API. The content management system can then distribute the change descriptors to the client devices, which refer to the semantic locations of the change descriptors when determining how to reconcile changes made by other client devices.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method performed by a content management system, the method comprising:

receiving, by the content management system from a first client device, a notification of a change to a content item stored on the first client device, the content item having a data format with data semantics unknown to the content management system, the notification of the change comprising an indication of a first semantic location of the change within the content item and an indication of a first version of the content item at a time of the change;

determining, based on the indication of the first version of the content item, whether a second client device has already made a second change to the content item with respect to the first version of the content item;

responsive to determining that the second client device has already made the second change, providing a notification of change rejection to the first client device, the notification of change rejection comprising an indication of a second semantic location of the second change within the content item, the indication of the second semantic location having been provided by the second client device;

receiving a request from the second client device to receive changes to the content item;

registering the second client device to receive changes to the content item;

receiving from the first client device a notification of a third change resulting from the first client device combining the change and the second change, the notification of the third change comprising an indication of a third semantic location of the third change within the content item; and

responsive to receiving the notification of the third change, providing a notification of the third change to the second client device.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing the indication of the third semantic location within content storage in association with an identifier of the content item.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the second change made by the second client device resulted in a second version of the content item, the second version being later than the first version, the method further comprising:

receiving a query from a third client device for changes to the content item since the second version, the query being distinct from a notification of a change to a content item;

responsive to receiving the query, providing to the third client device the indication of the third semantic location of the third change for incorporation by the third client device of the third change within a copy of the content item stored on the third client device.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the indications of the first and second semantic location are specified in terms of an indicator of a record within the content item and an indicator of a field within the record.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein neither the indicator of the record nor the indicator of the field contains a byte-based location.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining whether a second client device has stored a second change to the content item with respect to the first version of the content item comprises comparing a version indicator provided by the first client device along with the notification of the change, and a version indicator stored in association with the content item.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the notification of the change to the content item is specified using an application programming interface (API) of the content management system, the API comprising an insert function to insert a record within a content item, a delete function to delete a record within a content item, and a modify operation to modify a field of a record within a content item.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the change to the content item is a single logical change corresponding to a plurality of distinct physical portions of the content item.

9. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having executable computer program instructions embodied therein, the instructions comprising:

instructions for receiving, from a first client device, a notification of a change to a content item stored on the first client device, the notification of the change comprising an indication of a first semantic location of the change within the content item and an indication of a first version of the content item at a time of the change;

instructions for determining, based on the indication of the first version of the content item, whether a second client device has made a second change to the content item with respect to the first version of the content item;

instructions for providing a notification of change rejection to the first client device responsive to determining that the second client device has made the second change, the notification of change rejection comprising an indication of a second semantic location of the second change within the content item, the indication of the second semantic location having been provided by the second client device;

instructions for receiving a request from the second client device to receive changes to the content item;

instructions for registering the second client device to receive changes to the content item;

instructions for receiving from the first client device a notification of a third change resulting from the first client device combining the change and the second change, the notification of the third change comprising an indication of a third semantic location of the third change within the content item; and

instructions for, responsive to receiving the notification of the third change, providing a notification of the third change to the second client device.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, the instructions further comprising:

instructions for storing the indication of the third semantic location within a content item repository in association with an identifier of the content item.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the second change made by the second client device resulted in a second version of the content item, the second version being later than the first version, the instructions further comprising:

instructions for receiving a query from a third client device for changes to the content item since the second version;

instructions for providing to the third client device the indication of the third semantic location of the third change for incorporation by the third client device of the third change within a copy of the content item stored on the third client device, responsive to receiving the query.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the indications of the first and second semantic location are specified in terms of an indicator of a record within the content item and an indicator of a field within the record.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein neither the indicator of the record nor the indicator of the field contains a byte-based location.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein determining whether a second client device has stored a second change to the content item with respect to the first version of the content item comprises comparing a version indicator provided by the first client device along with the notification of the change, and a version indicator stored in association with the content item.

15. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having executable computer program instructions embodied therein, the instructions comprising:

instructions for providing, to a remote server, a notification of a change to a content item stored on a client device, the notification of the change comprising an indication of a first semantic location of the change within the content item and an indication of a first version of the content item at a time of the change;

instructions for receiving, from the remote server, a notification of change rejection comprising an indication of a second semantic location of a second change within the content item, the indication of the second semantic location having been provided by a second client device;

instructions for, responsive to receipt of the notification of change rejection, merging the change and the second change within the content item stored on the client device, the merging resulting in a third change to the content item;

instructions for providing to the remote server a notification of the third change to the content item;

instructions for sending a request to the remote server to register to receive changes to the content item; and

instructions for receiving, responsive to sending the request, a notification of a change made to the content item by a different client device.

16. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, from an application executing on a first client device, a notification of a change to a content item stored on the first client device, the notification of the change including;

a numerical indication of a first record of the content item and a numerical indication of a first field within the first record in which the change was located, and

an indication of a previous version of the content item identified with a previous version identifier;

determining that the content item has previously been stored as a second change with respect to the previous version, the second change specified as being located within a second record of the content item and a second field within the second record and resulting in a second version later than the previous version;

providing, to the application executing on the first client device;

an indication of the second record and the second field, and

an identifier of the second version;

receiving a request from the second client device to receive changes to the content item;

registering the second client device to receive changes to the content item;

receiving, from the application executing on the first client device, an updated notification of the change to the content item stored on the first client device, the updated notification including;

an indication of the first record of the content item,

an indication of a merged change resulting from the application executing on the first client device merging the change with the second change within the content item stored on the first client device;

responsive to receiving the notification of the merged change, providing a notification of the merged change to the second client device; and

storing the content item as the indication of the merged change in association with an identifier of a resulting third version later than the second version.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving a query from a third client device for changes to the content item since the second version;

responsive to receiving the query, providing to the third client device the indication of the first record and the indication of the merged change for incorporation by the third client device of the merged change within a copy of the content item stored on the third client device.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein neither the indication of the first record nor the indication of the first field contains a byte-based location.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein determining that the content item has previously been stored as a second change with respect to the previous version comprises comparing the previous version identifier with a version indicator stored in association with the content item.