System and method for caching content elements with dynamic URLs

1. A method comprising:

receiving a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request from a user device for a content element, the HTTP request being generated from a dynamic Uniform Resource Locator (URL), wherein the HTTP request indicates a GET method for retrieving the requested content;

generating a static content element identifier from the HTTP request by removing dynamic parameters from the HTTP request;

determining whether the content element is in a cache using the static content element identifier, wherein the cache is remote from the client device;

modifying the HTTP request from indicating the GET method to indicating a HEAD method in response to determining that the content element is in the cache;

sending the HTTP request indicating the HEAD method to a content provider at a host address given in the URL for the content provider to determine whether the content element can be served to the user device from the cache; and

receiving a HTTP response from the content provider, the HTTP response comprising a header, the header indicating whether the user device has access privileges to the content element.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the HTTP request includes content identification parameters and context parameters that were present in the dynamic URL, wherein the content identification parameters define the requested content element and the context parameters define the dynamic parameters, wherein generating the static content element identifier by removing dynamic parameters from the HTTP request comprises removing the context parameters.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determination of whether the content element is in the cache is performed using a cache lookup table, the cache lookup table including a list of content element identifiers versus pointers to content elements.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein if the static content element identifier matches one of the content element identifiers in the cache lookup table, the content element is determined to be present in cache.

5. The method of claim 3 , wherein if the static content element identifier does not match one of the content element identifiers in the cache lookup table, the content element is retrieved from the content provider and is placed in the cache.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the HTTP response includes an entity tag relating to the content element, wherein the entity tag is used to determine whether the content element in the cache is the same version as a content element stored at the content provider.

7. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising a set of computer-readable instructions stored thereon, which, when executed by a processing system, cause the processing system to receive a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request from a user device for a content element, the request being generated from a dynamic Uniform Resource Locator (URL), wherein the HTTP request indicates a GET method for retrieving the requested content;

generate a static content element identifier from the HTTP request by removing dynamic parameters from the HTTP request;

determine whether the content element is in a cache using the static content element identifier, wherein the cache is remote from the user device;

modify the HTTP request from indicating the GET method to indicating a HEAD method in responsive to determining that the content element is in the cache;

send the HTTP request indicating the HEAD method to a content provider at a host address given in the URL for the content provider to determine whether the content element can be served to the user device from the cache; and

receive a HTTP response from the content provider, the HTTP response comprising a header, the header indicating whether the user device has access privileges to the content element.

8. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 7 , wherein the request includes content identification parameters and context parameters that were present in the dynamic URL, wherein the content identification parameters define the requested content element and the context parameters define dynamic parameters, wherein generating the static content element identifier by removing dynamic parameters from the HTTP request comprises removing the context parameters.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 7 , wherein the determination of whether the content element is in the cache is performed using a cache lookup table, the cache lookup table comprising a list of content element identifiers versus pointers to content elements.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 , wherein if the static content element identifier matches one of the content element identifiers in the cache lookup table, the content element is determined to be present in the cache.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 , wherein if the static content element identifier does not match one of the content element identifiers in the cache lookup table, the content element is retrieved from the content provider and is placed in the cache.

12. An apparatus comprising:

a processor; and

a memory for storing executable instructions, which when executed by the processor perform the steps of:

receiving a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request from a user device for a content element, the HTTP request being generated from a dynamic Uniform Resource Locator (URL), wherein the HTTP request indicates a GET method for retrieving the requested content;

generating a static content element identifier from the HTTP request by removing dynamic parameters from the HTTP request;

determining whether the content element is in a cache using the static content element identifier, wherein the cache is remote from the user device;

modifying the HTTP request from indicating the GET method to indicating a HEAD method in response to determining that the content element is in the cache;

sending the HTTP request indicating the HEAD method to a content provider at a host address given in the URL for the content provider to determine whether the content element can be served to the user device from the cache; and

receiving a HTTP response from the content provider, the HTTP response comprising a header, the header indicating whether the user device has access privileges to the content element.

13. The apparatus of claim 12 , wherein the HTTP request includes content identification parameters and context parameters, wherein the content identification parameters define the requested content element and the context parameters define dynamic parameters, and wherein generating the static content element identifier by removing dynamic parameters from the HTTP request comprises removing the context parameters.

14. The apparatus of claim 12 further comprising a cache lookup table of content element identifiers versus pointers to content elements.

15. The apparatus of claim 14 , wherein the content element is looked up in the cache using the cache lookup table, wherein if the static content element identifier matches one of the content element identifiers of the cache lookup table, the content element is determined to be present in the cache.

16. The apparatus of claim 14 , wherein the content element is looked up in the cache using the cache lookup table, wherein if the static content element identifier does not match one of the content element identifiers, the content element is requested and upon receipt is placed in the cache, and further wherein the static content element identifier is added to the table with a corresponding pointer to the content element in the cache.

17. The method of claim 5 , wherein the static content element identifier is added to the cache lookup table with a corresponding pointer to the content element that has been placed in the cache.

18. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

sending the content element from the cache to the user device in response to the header of the HTTP response indicating that the user device has access privileges to the content element.

19. The method of claim 1 , wherein the HTTP response includes an entity tag relating to the content element, the entity tag indicating one or more of: a file size, a file type, a creation date and an expiry date of the content element.