Patent ID: 7516166

Claim:
A method for loading a resource in a software application, the software application comprising an ordered search path identifying at least one of a plurality of resource containers, each resource container of the resource containers having a timestamp and an index in the ordered search path, the method comprising: loading, using a computer, the resource from an originating resource container, the originating resource container having an index in the ordered search path, the originating resource container is stored in a memory; identifying a set of the resource containers in the ordered search path, each resource container of the set of the resource containers having an index less than or equal to the index of the originating resource container; generating a cached resource as a copy of the loaded resource, the cached resource comprising the index of the originating resource container and a cached resource timestamp, the cached resource timestamp corresponding to a maximum timestamp of the resource containers in the set of resource containers, the cached resource is stored in a resource cache and the cached resource includes a resource identifier; marking the cached resource as stale in response to a determination that (i) a resource container in the set of resource containers has a timestamp later than the cached resource timestamp, and (ii) an identified resource container comprises the resource having the resource identifier of the cached resource; and detecting stale resources in the resource cache without refreshing the resource cache and without searching the resource containers in a resource search path to verify that the resource has not been updated, wherein the detecting is based on the marking the cached resource as the stale, and the cached resource is a class.