A Dynamic Server

I am interested in some general thoughts  on the best method of
implementing the following scenario:

Jigsaw receives a HTTP request for a resource
http://www.mysite.com/productA.html

During the lookup for this resource Jigsaw :
    1) Checks to see if this resource exists (cached) and is viable (non
expired, etc...) by a set of criteria.
    2) If this resource is not available.  Jigsaw "redirects" the
request to have the resource generated on the fly either internally or
externally.

A more specific example:

A user requests a document, http://www.mysite.com/productA.html
This resource does not exists, so Jigsaw redirects the request to an
internal process (Servlet?) to invoke a XSL translator to generate the
productA.html page from a XML document and then caches and serves this
page.
Another user requests the page and this time the "lookup" succeeds and
the page is served up directly.

Is the best way approach to extend and override the "LookUp" method of
the file resource frame?  Creating a super smart lookup method.  Are
there other approaches.

Or does one attach a filter that redirects the URL to a servlet if the
file resource does not exist??

In other words, does one approach this with a custom Filter or a custom
Frame or both??

What if the application that generates the HTML from a XML document is
on another PC.  Then Jigsaw, upon failure of looking up the desired file
resource, must connect via RMI to the generating application and request
the generated HTML document.  Upon receiving the generated document,
Jigsaw caches and serves it up.

Sorry for the lack of specifics.  I am still brain storming a few
different approaches and using "very smart redirecting" code to generate
a file resource on the fly within the HTTP server (Jigsaw) is one
approach.

Regards,

Ray

Received on Tuesday, 18 May 1999 18:00:06 UTC