Patent ID: 7337239

Claim:
In a computer network that includes a server computing system and a client computing system, the server computing system and the client computing system each containing a version of a hierarchical data structure that contains a plurality of atomically-editable components, a method for the server computing system synchronizing the server version and the client version of the hierarchical data structure even though a receive buffer of the client computing system has insufficient memory to simultaneously contain a single message that has all of the synchronization data used to synchronize the server version and the client version, the method comprising the following: an act of determining that a synchronization is to occur between the server version and the client version of the hierarchical data structure; an act of identifying a plurality of changes that would need to occur if synchronization were to occur, each of the plurality of changes involving changes to one or more of the atomically-editable components; an act of estimating that a single message that contains all of the plurality of changes cannot be contained within a receive buffer of the client computing system; an act of assembling a first message that contains a first group of less than all of the plurality of changes by constructing a first Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) envelope that contains a header portion that correlates the first message with a second message, and that contains a body portion that contains the first group of changes; an act of assembling a second message that contains a second group of at least of portion of the plurality of changes that are not part of the first group by constructing a second SOAP envelope that contains a header portion that correlates the second message with the first message, and that contains a body portion that contains the second group of changes; an act of sending the first message to the client computing system; and an act of sending the second message to the client computing system.