IDENTIFYING CLIENT STATES

• US 20180268060A1
• Filed: 05/24/2018
• Published: 09/20/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 05/28/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: von Bochmann, Gregor, Ionescu, Paul, Jourdan, Guy-Vincent, Moosavi Byooki, Seyed Ali, Onut, Iosif V., Tripp, Omer
• Granted Patent: US 11,132,409 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2246 Trees, e.g. B+trees
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/80 of semi-structured data, e.g. markup language structured data such as SGML, XML or HTML content-based retrieval of web data G06F16/95
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/986 Document structures and storage, e.g. HTML extensions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/14 Tree-structured documents parsing G06F40/205; validation G06F40/226

Abstract

A method for identifying client states, receives a set of paths representative of a document object model (DOM) associated with a web page of a rich internet application and for each path in the set of paths received, extracts a subtree, as subtree X, for a current path. The method traverses all known sub-paths under the current path and delete corresponding subtrees from subtree X and reads contents of and determines states of subtree X to form a state X. The state X is added to a set of current states and responsive to a determination no more paths exist, returns the set of current states of the rich internet application.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

capturing a current representation of HTML for a web application;

identifying, within the current representation, a current substate value for each Xpath of a defined plurality of Xpaths within the HTML, wherein each Xpath is associated with a different variable substate of the web application, and wherein each variable substate has a plurality of possible substate values dependent upon event execution within the web application; and

generating, based on a combination of the identified current substate value of each of the variable substates, a current state representation of a document object model (DOM) of the web application.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

defining the plurality of Xpaths by, for each event of a plurality of events;

capturing an initial representation of the HTML for the web application;

executing, after the initial capture, the event within the web application;

capturing, after the execution of the event, an altered representation of the HTML; and

adding to the plurality of Xpaths a particular Xpath that is identified, based on differences between the initial and altered representations, as associated with a particular variable substate.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the plurality of events are identified for execution using a predetermined crawling strategy.

4. A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having a computer readable application stored therein, wherein the computer readable application, when executed on a computing device, causes the computing device to perform a method comprising:

capturing a current representation of HTML for a web application;

identifying, within the current representation, a current substate value for each Xpath of a defined plurality of Xpaths within the HTML, wherein each Xpath is associated with a different variable substate of the web application, and wherein each variable substate has a plurality of possible substate values dependent upon event execution within the web application; and

generating, based on a combination of the identified current substate value of each of the variable substates, a current state representation of a document object model (DOM) of the web application.

5. The computer program product of claim 4, wherein the method further comprises:

defining the plurality of Xpaths by, for each event of a plurality of events;

capturing an initial representation of the HTML for the web application;

executing, after the initial capture, the event within the web application;

capturing, after the execution of the event, an altered representation of the HTML; and

adding to the plurality of Xpaths a particular Xpath that is identified, based on differences between the initial and altered representations, as associated with a particular variable substate.

6. The computer program product of claim 5, wherein the plurality of events are identified for execution using a predetermined crawling strategy.

7. An apparatus comprising:

a communications fabric;

a memory connected to the communications fabric, wherein the memory contains computer executable program code; and

a processor unit connected to the communications fabric, wherein the processor unit executes the computer executable program code to direct the apparatus to perform a method comprising;

capturing a current representation of HTML for a web application;

identifying, within the current representation, a current substate value for each Xpath of a defined plurality of Xpaths within the HTML, wherein each Xpath is associated with a different variable substate of the web application, and wherein each variable substate has a plurality of possible substate values dependent upon event execution within the web application; and

generating, based on a combination of the identified current substate value of each of the variable substates, a current state representation of a document object model (DOM) of the web application.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the method further comprises:

defining the plurality of Xpaths by, for each event of a plurality of events;

capturing an initial representation of the HTML for the web application;

executing, after the initial capture, the event within the web application;

capturing, after the execution of the event, an altered representation of the HTML; and

adding to the plurality of Xpaths a particular Xpath that is identified, based on differences between the initial and altered representations, as associated with a particular variable substate.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the plurality of events are identified for execution using a predetermined crawling strategy.