Communicating delta's of an XML document from client to a server.

[shettync]

Hi,

In one of the projects that I am working on, have been sending xml
messages back n forth btw the client(swing) and the corba server. The
serialized objects(in xml representation) are rich complex types (with
nested objects within).Currently am using a homegrown java xml
serialization mechanism which I plan to replace with a databinding
framework like JAXB.
The server typically deserializes this xml to a java object and
applies some basic business validation and performs CRUD operations
via DAO layer.

I am finding that there is significant amt of overhead in sending
these complete xmlized object for insert and every subsequent update.
Question is how would one end up sending just xml delta(only the data
that has changed) on UPDATEs, instead of sending the complete
serialized object(xml).

This question was asked way back in 2002, suggestions were made to use
xpath, but wanted to followup and get more pointers.

Please also take a look at the original thread:
http://groups.google.com/group/micr...+delta+to+server&rnum=1&hl=en#020be6324245084

Any inputs will be very helpful.

Thanks,
?n

 

[Joe Kesselman]

Question is how would one end up sending just xml delta(only the data
that has changed) on UPDATEs, instead of sending the complete
serialized object(xml).

There has been some good work done in diff/patch tools for XML; if you
websearch for "xml diff" you ought to find some of that.

Unfortunately IBM's early xmldiff tool on alphaWorks had a dependency on
other code which is no longer available, and so was shelved; I've
occasionally thought that one ought to be revived.


(Apologies for not including microsoft.public.xml in my replies, but
"public" appears to be a misnomer; it refuses to accept my posts.)