ENHANCING CLIENT-SIDE OBJECT CACHING FOR WEB BASED APPLICATIONS

• US 20120158831A1
• Filed: 02/24/2012
• Published: 06/21/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/05/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Beaver, Michael B., Collier, Jason A., Deas, Marlies Santos, Jagoda, Jeffrey S.
• Granted Patent: US 9,576,067 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

An object request associated with a requesting entity can be identified. The object request can comprise of an object identifier and an object type associated with an object instance which can be a renderable entity. The entity can be a widget within an application executing within a client device. An object type associated with the object request can be determined which can be decomposed into an attribute request based a selected schema. The attribute request can comprise of an object instance identifier and an attribute identifier associated with an attribute value. An attribute index associated with a client-side object cache can be queried for the attribute value. When the attribute value exists in the attribute index, an appropriate attribute value associated with the attribute can be conveyed to the entity. When the attribute value is absent from the attribute index, the attribute request can be conveyed to a request aggregator.

Claims

1. A method for enhancing client-side object caching comprising:

identifying an object request associated with a requesting entity, wherein the object request comprises of an object identifier and an object type associated with an object instance, wherein the requesting entity is a widget within an application executing within a client-side computing device, and wherein the object instance is a renderable entity of the widget;

decomposing the object request into a plurality of different attribute requests, wherein each of the different attribute requests is a request for at least one attribute value;

for each of the different attribute requests, querying an attribute index of an object cache for the at least one attribute value;

when the attribute value exists in the attribute index, conveying an appropriate attribute value for the corresponding attribute request to the requesting entity from the object cache; and

when the attribute value is absent from the attribute index, conveying the attribute request to a server remotely located from the object cache;

receiving a server-provided attribute value from the server for the corresponding attribute request;

caching the server-provided attribute value in the object cache; and

conveying the server-provided attribute value to the requesting entity.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the object cache is a client-side cache contained in a non-transitory storage medium of the client-side computing device, and wherein the identifying of the object request, the decomposing of the object request, the querying of the attribute index, and either the conveying of the appropriate attribute value or the conveying of the attribute request to the server are actions performed by the client-side computing device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the object cache is contained in a non-transitory storage medium of a computing device, wherein the computing device conveys messages between the client-side computing device and the server, and wherein the identifying of the object request, the decomposing of the object request, the querying of the attribute index, and either the conveying of the appropriate attribute value or the conveying of the attribute request to the server are actions performed by the computing device responsive to receiving the object request from the client-side computing device.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

before decomposing the object request into a plurality of different attribute requests, checking the object cache for an object that satisfies the object request;

when no object that satisfies the object request exists in the object cache, responsively preforming the decomposing of the object request, the querying of the attribute index and either the conveying of the appropriate attribute value or the conveying of the attribute request; and

when an object that satisfies the object request exists in the object cache, responsively providing the object that satisfies the object request from the object cache and not performing the decomposing of the object request, the querying of the attribute index, the conveying of the appropriate attribute value, or the conveying of the attribute request.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

conveying a request for a Web page from the client-side computing device to the server, wherein the Web page comprises the object instance;

responsive to the request, receiving markup from the server, said markup comprising a non-renderable section comprising object identifiers with corresponding object values for objects of the Web page and attribute identifiers and corresponding attribute values for attributes of the Web page;

responsive to receiving the markup, populating the object cache with the object identifiers and corresponding object values and attribute identifiers and corresponding attribute values; and

rendering the Web page on the client-side computing device, wherein the Web page as rendered includes the object instance, and wherein each of the attribute requests for the object instance is obtained from querying the object cache utilizing information obtained from the non-renderable section of the markup.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the attribute index is a hashing data structure.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving attribute values for each of the attribute requests, wherein at least one of the attribute values is from the object cache; and

constructing an object value satisfying the object requests from the attribute values.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

conveying a checksum request associated with the object request to an object service, wherein the object service is associated with a server-side resource;

receiving an object checksum associated with the checksum request;

comparing the object checksum with a cached object checksum of the object cache, to determine whether cached content is current.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the object conforms to a JAVASCRIPT OBJECT NOTATION (JSON).

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the decomposing step further comprising:

determining an object type for an object associated with the object request;

selecting an object schema associated with the object request based on the object type; and

determining the plurality of different attribute requestes using the selected object schema.