I want to cache a small database as a temporary file on the clients drive to save trips to the server for records, and I have found myself totally lost. Can anyone help clear the cobwebs?

Sure ... if you want to cache data at the client, via a browser, you need to send it down in the markup. Probably in a giant cdata element. I don't think javascript is allowed to write to the file system in any browser, though, so you'll need to work something else out, like an ActiveX component, or the like...?

Other than ASP cannot write to the client drive, what cobwebs would that be?


and the very very last thing you should consider is trying to write a database to cookies/sessions

It would seem you are right Chris, however the browser writes to the clients drive every time an image is loaded, can it be that big of a leap to cache data the same way? I see that html 5 will explicitly support client side recordsets... ah the future looks bright!

The magic words here of course being the browser!! Even then, it can ONLY write to a specified area of the client HD, this being the cache.
To have server side code or even client side code have unfettered access to the users HD would mean absolute disaster from a security point of view.

Client side javascript is not allowed to write anything other than cookies to the client machine.
ActiveX of course can, but you would need to have a specific ActiveX control/object installed on the client machine, that is given permission to run when invoked by the browser. This then would limit your system to serving only IE browsers on a MS Windows OS.

HTML 5, eh so only 9 more years to wait until it's released and maybe another 5 - 6 years for browsers to catchup.

Alright already! AJAX it is!