Patent ID: 8713056

Claim:
A method of caching hierarchical items in a network environment, the method comprising: at a server computer, responsive to a user action at a client device communicatively connected to the server computer, determining, by the server computer, that a node in a permission tree associated with the user is a dirty node relative to a node in a hierarchical navigation tree, the permission tree representing a portion of the hierarchical navigation tree, the hierarchical navigation tree representing a network site in the network environment, and the hierarchical navigation tree having a plurality of nodes representing the hierarchical items of the network site; reconstructing, by the server computer, a portion of the permission tree associated with the dirty node; and updating, by the server computer, a node timestamp and a tree timestamp associated with the dirty node, the dirty node representing one of the hierarchical items of the network site; wherein the determining comprises comparing a root tree timestamp of the hierarchical navigation tree with a root tree timestamp of the permission tree and if the root tree time stamp of the hierarchical navigation tree is more recent than the root tree timestamp of the permission tree, comparing node time stamps of each node in the permission tree with node time stamps of corresponding nodes in the hierarchical navigation tree, wherein the determining further comprises comparing a tree timestamp for a node in the hierarchical navigation tree with a tree timestamp for a corresponding node in the permission tree if a node time stamp for the node in the hierarchical navigation tree is not more recent than a node time stamp for the corresponding node in the permission tree.