METHOD FOR CLIENT-SIDE AGGREGATION OF ASYNCHRONOUS, CONTEXT-SENSITIVE REQUEST OPERATIONS FOR JAVA SERVER PAGES (JSP)

• US 20090144707A1
• Filed: 12/04/2007
• Published: 06/04/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/04/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Johnson, Scott D., Goff, Robert E., Kaplinger, Todd E., Moldenhauer, Maxim A., Kenna, Stephen J., Koonce, Erinn E.
• Granted Patent: US 8,185,610 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/136
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/986 Document structures and storage, e.g. HTML extensions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/541 Client-server
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication

Abstract

A method, system, and computer program product for efficiently fulfilling java server page (JSP) requests for dynamic web content, in a computer network system. An asynchronous processing (AP) utility pre-defines a number of custom classes to enable the asynchronous processing of requests. A JSP which contains a custom “async:include” tag indicates an asynchronous request for dynamic content. When a set of asynchronous requests are received by an application server, an “AsyncRequestDispatcher” is called to handle the asynchronous processing of each associated request dispatcher include fragment. For each fragment, a separate request thread is initiated. A placeholder corresponding to each “async:include” request is written to a servlet response buffer. HyperText Markup Language (HTML) content, which includes the placeholders, and a number of javascripts are then written to the client browser. The original thread is closed. The Javascripts enable the retrieval of all response fragments which replace the corresponding placeholders.

Claims

1. In an application server receiving a request for dynamic web content, a method comprising:

defining a number of custom Java classes within a class library, wherein said classes allow an asynchronous processing of a number of requests for dynamic web content;

receiving, from a client, one or more requests for a dynamic web content at the application server, wherein said application server initiates a request thread at a receipt of the one or more requests;

generating a JSP, wherein said JSP comprises one or more “

async include”

tags, wherein said tags indicate the asynchronous request for the dynamic web content;

activating a translation of the JSP to a Java servlet;

prompting the execution of the generated Java servlet;

triggering a number of further processing actions to facilitate the generation of one or more response fragments; and

transferring one or more response fragments to the client based on a reception of one or more poll requests, wherein said poll requests are facilitated by the JavaScript contained in each placeholder.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said triggering further comprises:

invoking an “

async;

include”

action, corresponding to the “

async;

include”

tag, which provides an “

async request dispatcher”

(ARD) JSP response wrapper;

when the ARD JSP response wrapper is implemented, creating a “

PrintWriter”

response object, wherein said response object allows a number of response fragments to be written directly to the ARD JSP response wrapper;

initiating a response thread for the one or more “

async include”

requests corresponding to each one of a plurality of “

async include”

tags, with an aid of one or more asynchronous beans, wherein said asynchronous beans facilitate the propagation of a number of request contexts, wherein said contexts include one or more of, but is not exclusively limited to;

(1) a security context;

(2) a naming context; and

(3) connection context;

registering a content of each one of a plurality of “

async include”

requests with a application server storage system;

writing HTML content, a number of placeholders containing JavaScript respectively corresponding to a number of “

async include”

to the JSP buffer, wherein said JSP buffer writes to a servlet response buffer; and

closing the request thread.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said transferring further comprises:

receiving one or more poll requests from the client, wherein said one or more poll requests indicate that the client is ready to receive one or more of a plurality of response fragments returned by the response thread, wherein said one or more poll requests are based on one of the following;

(1) a poll request to a controller of a server storage service, wherein said poll request is received, at a regular interval, until a response fragment is available; and

(2) an asynchronous input-output (AIO) mechanism, wherein said AIO mechanism facilitates the transmission of a single poll request for a corresponding response fragment, wherein said AIO mechanism keeps said single poll request open until the corresponding response fragment is available;

when each one of a plurality of response fragments is available, submitting each one of the plurality of response fragments to the client, following a reception of the one or more of the plurality of poll requests; and

when a transmitted response fragment is received by the client, removing the response fragment from the server storage.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein said code for transferring further comprises code for:

receiving one or more poll requests from the client, wherein said one or more poll requests indicate that the client is ready to receive one or more of a plurality of response fragments returned by the response thread, wherein said one or more poll requests are based on one of the following;

(1) a poll request to a controller of a server storage service, wherein said poll request is received, at a regular interval, until a response fragment is available; and

(2) an asynchronous input-output (AIO) mechanism, wherein said AIO mechanism facilitates the transmission of a single poll request for a corresponding response fragment, wherein said AIO mechanism keeps said single poll request open until the corresponding response fragment is available;

when each one of a plurality of response fragments is available, submitting each one of the plurality of response fragments to the client, following a reception of the one or more of the plurality of poll requests; and

when a transmitted response fragment is received by the client, removing the response fragment from the server storage.

4. A data processing system comprising:

a processor which executes a JSP server application software;

a memory system which stores the JSP server application software;

a mechanism for connecting to a network having one or a more clients;

a utility having code executing on the processor which code provides the functions of;

defining a number of custom java classes within a class library, wherein said classes allow an asynchronous processing of a number of requests for dynamic web content;

receiving, from a client, one or more requests for a dynamic web content at the application server, wherein said application server initiates a request thread at a receipt of the one or more requests;

generating a JSP, wherein said JSP comprises one or more “

async include”

tags, wherein said tags indicate the request for the dynamic web content;

activating a translation of the JSP to a Java servlet;

prompting the execution of the generated Java servlet;

triggering a number of further processing actions to facilitate the generation of one or more response fragments; and

transferring one or more response fragments to the client based on a reception of one or more poll requests, wherein said poll requests are facilitated by the one or more Javascript placeholders.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein said code for triggering further comprises code for:

invoking an “

async;

include”

action, corresponding to the “

async;

include”

tag, which provides an “

async request dispatcher”

(ARD) JSP response wrapper;

when the ARD JSP response wrapper is implemented, creating a “

PrintWriter”

response object, wherein said response object allows a number of response fragments to be written directly to the ARD JSP response wrapper;

initiating a response thread for the one or more “

async include”

requests corresponding to each one of a plurality of “

async include”

tags, with an aid of one or more asynchronous beans, wherein said asynchronous beans facilitate the propagation of a number of request contexts, wherein said contexts include one or more of, but is not exclusively limited to;

(1) a security context;

(2) a naming context; and

(3) connection context;

registering a content of each one of a plurality of “

async include”

requests with a application server storage system;

writing an HTML content, a number of placeholders respectively corresponding to a number of “

async include”

requests, and a number of javascripts respectively corresponding to a number of “

async include”

requests to the JSP buffer, wherein said JSP buffer writes to a servlet response buffer; and

closing the request thread.

7. A computer program product comprising:

a computer readable medium; and

program code on said computer readable medium that when executed within a server computer system, said program code provides the functionality of;

defining a number of custom java classes within a class library, wherein said classes allow an asynchronous processing of a number of requests for dynamic web content;

receiving, from a client, one or more requests for a dynamic web content at the application server, wherein said application server initiates a request thread at a receipt of the one or more requests;

generating a JSP, wherein said JSP comprises one or more “

async include”

tags, wherein said tags indicate the request for the dynamic web content;

activating a translation of the JSP to a Java servlet;

prompting the execution of the generated Java servlet;

triggering a number of further processing actions to facilitate the generation of one or more response fragments; and

transferring one or more response fragments to the client based on a reception of one or more poll requests, wherein said poll requests are facilitated by the one or more Javascript placeholders.

8. The computer program product of claim 7, wherein said code for triggering further comprises code for:

invoking an “

async;

include”

action, corresponding to the “

async;

include”

tag, which provides an “

async request dispatcher”

(ARD) JSP response wrapper;

when the ARD JSP response wrapper is implemented, creating a “

PrintWriter”

response object, wherein said response object allows a number of response fragments to be written directly to the ARD JSP response wrapper;

initiating a response thread for the one or more “

async include”

requests corresponding to each one of a plurality of “

async include”

tags, with an aid of one or more asynchronous beans, wherein said asynchronous beans facilitate the propagation of a number of request contexts, wherein said contexts include one or more of, but is not exclusively limited to;

(1) a security context;

(2) a naming context; and

(3) connection context;

registering a content of each one of a plurality of “

async include”

requests with a application server storage system;

writing HTML content, a number of placeholders respectively corresponding to a number of “

async include”

requests, and a number of Javascript placeholders corresponding to a number of “

async include”

requests to the JSP buffer, wherein said JSP buffer writes to a servlet response buffer; and

closing the request thread.

9. The computer program product of claim 7, wherein said code for transferring further comprises code for:

receiving one or more poll requests from the client, wherein said one or more poll requests indicate that the client is ready to receive one or more of a plurality of response fragments returned by the response thread, wherein said one or more poll requests are based on one of the following;

(1) a poll request to a controller of a server storage service, wherein said poll request is received, at a regular interval, until a response fragment is available; and

(2) an asynchronous input-output (AIO) mechanism, wherein said AIO mechanism facilitates the transmission of a single poll request for a corresponding response fragment, wherein said AIO mechanism keeps said single poll request open until the corresponding response fragment is available;

when each one of a plurality of response fragments is available, submitting each one of the plurality of response fragments to the client, following a reception of the one or more of the plurality of poll requests; and

when a transmitted response fragment is received by the client, removing the response fragment from the server storage.