Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Distributed data processing – Client/server
Reexamination Certificate
1999-10-04
2003-02-25
Maung, Zarni (Department: 2154)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Distributed data processing
Client/server
C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000, C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06526435
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electrical computers and data processing systems. Specifically, the present invention relates to a system and method for downloading selected rows within a listing using HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP).
2. The Prior State of the Art
The Internet has revolutionized the way people communicate and learn. With just a computer, a Web browser, and an Internet connection, a user can access a host of services available on the Internet.
In a typical method of accessing the Internet, the user will first indicate a desire to access the Internet through a graphical user interface provided by the Web browser. For example, the user might use a pointing device such as a mouse to click a “SIGN ON” button displayed by the Web browser on the computer display. The user's computer (i.e., the client computer) then links to the Internet automatically. The user might then download a resource such as a Web page, a directory listing, an e-mail listing, or a table by the user requesting that information. For example, the user might click on a hypertext link in a HTML document to request the resource corresponding to that hypertext link. In response, the client computer and server computers on the Internet automatically download the requested resource to the client computer. Since the actions undertaken by the client computer and server computers to satisfy this request are largely hidden from the user, accessing the Internet can be quite easy for a user once the user becomes familiar with their computer and Web browser.
What is less apparent is what actions are undertaken by the client computer and server computers on the Internet in order to respond appropriately to the user's request for information. In response to the user's request, the client computer generates an electronic request for the corresponding resource. This request is typically then transmitted to a server computer that has access to the requested resource. Once the server computer receives the electronic request, the server computer interprets the request, and responds by sending an electronic response including the desired resource to the client computer.
In order for this communication to work properly, there must be a standard for communicating between the client computer and the server computer that has access to the desired resource. One of the most pervasive standard used in sending and receiving messages over the Internet is called HyperText Transport Protocol or “HTTP”. Electronic requests can include one of several methods defined by HTTP, the methods defining the action to be taken upon a desired resource. For example, a “GET” method causes the server computer to download the resource in its entirety to the client computer.
While HTTP is normally used to retrieve documents over the Internet, an extension of HTTP called Distributed Authoring and Versioning (or “WEBDAV”) defines standards for retrieving a listing of elements whether it be a directory listing, an e-mail listing, a listing of rows in a table, or some other kind of listing. Often, these listings can be quite large. Rather than downloading these listings in their entirety, WEBDAV allows a client computer to request only those rows within a certain range. The server computer responds by downloading only the identified row range rather than the entire listing.
The row range is identified in the request using row numbers. For example, the HTTP request might specify that only the row range from row
1400
through row
1420
of the listing is desired. Therefore, even if the listing is relatively large, only a small portion of the listing is downloaded. Thus, the requested rows are downloaded and viewed relatively quickly. This allows the user to access desired rows without the inconvenience of having to wait for the entire listing to be downloaded.
Although this method has its advantages, it still has several disadvantages. For example, this method permits only one row range to be downloaded at a time. Suppose that the listing was a listing including the names of individuals in alphabetical order. Now suppose the user needs information regarding Aaron Aadan and Zelda Zynda. In the above describe row range method, the user would need to issue a request for Aaron Aadan perhaps designating early rows in the listing such as rows
1
-
20
. The user would then need to issue a separate request for Zelda Zynda by perhaps designating latter rows in the listing such as rows
9981
-
10000
(assuming a listing 10000 rows long). If information regarding more individuals were desired, even more requests would need to be issued. Each request takes additional effort of the user, time for the server to process the request, and time for the server to download the request. If the server is busy processing other requests, this additional request might wait in a buffer until the server computer can process the request which can take even more time. In addition, if the network is experiencing a lot of traffic, the download time may also be high, thus increasing the time required to obtain the desired information even further.
Another disadvantage of this method is based on the fact that the row range is specified by row numbers. If the row numbers change frequently the row range may not correspond to the intended range. For example, suppose that the user requests rows
980
-
1000
of the listing and receives rows
980
-
1000
. While the user is analyzing these rows, 5 new rows are inserted before row
980
. Now, unbeknownst to the user, rows
980
-
1000
are reassigned by the server as rows
985
-
1005
to accommodate the insertion.
Now, suppose that the user desires to see the next 20 rows in the listing. The user would logically request rows
1001
-
1020
thinking that the user would receive the next 20 rows with no overlap. However, the user would actually receive five rows of overlapping rows corresponding to the current rows
1001
-
1005
which correspond to the rows
996
-
1000
previously downloaded. Thus, in the second download, the user did not receive the intended row ranges, and the user undesirably does not have complete control over which rows are downloaded. Therefore, what is desired is a system and method for more flexibly and accurately downloading row ranges using a single request.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention may be implemented in a computer network such as the Internet that includes client computers that generate requests for services, and include server computers that fulfill such requests.
In one method of the present invention, one of the client computers accesses a listing having a number of rows. For example, this listing might be a directory listing, an e-mail listing, a contacts listing, a table listing, or any other type of listing accessible by one of the server computers in the computer network. The client computer does not access all of the listing since downloading the entire listing could be time consuming. Instead, the client computer accesses only the information within row of certain row ranges.
The client computer first generates a single HTTP request for the rows within the desired row ranges. Since this request is compliant with HTTP protocol as an extension of HTTP, a common Internet protocol, the present invention allows for the retrieval of row ranges over the Internet. This is especially advantageous in the context of the Internet since the Internet permits numerous client computers to communicate with numerous server computers. Thus, each client computers has access to numerous listings through numerous server computers. The present invention also allows client computers to access these listings without having to download the entire listing. Since many client computers have connections to the Internet that download data very slowly, allowing for the flexible downloading of only a portion of the listing saves significant time.
The client computer then transmits the HTTP request over the computer network to be received by
Clinton Gregory
Maung Zarni
Microsoft Corporation
Workman & Nydegger & Seeley
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