Method and system for parameterized web documents

• US 8,799,764 B2
• Filed: 05/31/2006
• Issued: 08/05/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/08/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kausik, Balas Natarajan, Jawahar, Janardhanan
• Primary Examiner(s): Bashore, William
• Assistant Examiner(s): Faber, David
• Application Number:
  US11/421,455
• Publication Number:
  US 20060206796A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,988 Days
• Field of Search: 715/234, 715/242, 715/200, 715/229, 715/209, 715/250, 715/255
• US Class Current: 715/229
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/197 Version control for software G06F8/71

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed for constructing web (or other networked) documents as parameterized forms of other networked documents. For example, a document may be represented as a collection of changes to be applied to a first document which is incorporated by reference in the second document. Instead of delivering the entire document over a slower network connecting the content server to the content browser, the document is delivered as a collection of changes to previously delivered documents that are much closer to the user'"'"'s content browser. In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, special software is not necessarily required at the end user for reconstructing the second document from the set of base documents and the set of modifications to the base documents.

Claims

1. A system to construct parameterized web documents, the system comprising:

a microprocessor to;

identify a base document that serves as a reference for a current document;

identify strings that occur in the base document that also occur in the current document, and strings that occur in the current document that do not occur in the base document; and

create a condensed document comprising a programmatic representation including at least one parsable statement used to modify the base document with at least one string that occurs in the current document that does not occur in the base document, the condensed document configured to be parsed within a content browser to recreate the current document based on the at least one parsable statement and the base document, the programmatic representation condensing one or more of the strings that occur in the current document that do not occur in the base document, the programmatic representation being decodable by a decoder of the content browser, the content browser decoder being configured to perform at least one content browser function unrelated to decoding the programmatic representation.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the condensed document is to include a base document identifier;

references to portions of the base document for strings that occur in the base document; and

references to strings that do not occur in the base document.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the microprocessor is configured to create the condensed document in a scripting language executable on a content browser of the user.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the microprocessor configures the condensed document to be self-executing on the content browser.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the base document shares content with the current document.

6. The system of claim 1, which comprises a cache from which the base document is accessible to the user, the cache being a local cache of the content browser of a user.

7. The system of claim 1, which comprises a cache from which the base document is accessible to the user, the cache being a network cache common to a plurality of users.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the base document is stored in a cache and is encoded with a lifetime that is greater than an expected usage time of the base document, the microprocessor being configured to replace the base document in the cache when a difference between the current document and the base document exceeds a threshold value.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the microprocessor is configured to include a reference to the base document when creating the condensed document.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the reference to the base document is configured to minimize conflicts with references to non-base documents.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the reference to the base document is a storage location identifier.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the storage location identifier is a URL that contains a random number.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the base document is identified based on a degree of similarity to the current document.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the base document is a previous version of the current document.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the base document is a template for the current document.

16. A non-transitory computer-readable medium embodying instructions which, when executed on a computer, cause the computer to:

receive a current document to be distributed from a content server to a user;

identify a base document that serves as a reference for the current document;

identify strings that occur in the base document that also occur in the current document, and strings that occur in the current document that do not occur in the base document;

create a condensed document comprising a programmatic representation including at least one parsable statement used to modify the base document with at least one string that occurs in the current document that does not occur in the base document, the condensed document configured to be parsed within a content browser to recreate the current document based on the at least one parsable statement and the base document, the programmatic representation condensing one or more of the strings that occur in the current document that do not occur in the base document, the programmatic representation being decodable by a decoder of the content browser, the content browser decoder being configured to perform at least one content browser function unrelated to decoding the programmatic representation; and

distribute the condensed document to the user in place of sending to the user the current document in its entirety.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the condensed document includes:

a base document identifier;

references to portions of the base document for strings that occur in the base document; and

references to strings that do not occur in the base document.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the condensed document is in a scripting language executable on a content browser of the user.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the condensed document is configured to be self-executing on the content browser.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the base document is stored in a cache and encoded with a lifetime, the base document being replaced in the cache when a difference between the current document and the base document exceeds a threshold value.

21. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the condensed document includes a reference to the base document, the reference to the base document being a storage location identifier.