Parallel network data processing in client side JavaScript applications

In modern computer systems, multicore processors are prevalent, even on mobile devices. Since JavaScript WebWorkers provide execution parallelism in a web browser, they can help utilize multicore CPUs more effectively. However, WebWorker limitations include a lack of access to web browser´s native XML processing capabilities and related Document Object Model (DOM). We present a JavaScript DOM and XML processing implementation that adds missing APIs to WebWorkers. This way, it is possible to use JavaScript code that relies on native APIs within WebWorkers. We show and evaluate the seamless integration of an external XMPP library to enable parallel network data and user input processing in a web based real-time remote collaboration system. Evaluation shows that our XML processing solution has the same linear execution time complexity as its native API counterparts. The proposed JavaScript solution is a general approach to enable parallel XML data processing within web browser-based applications. By implementing standards compliant DOM interfaces, our implementation is useful for existing libraries and applications to leverage the processing power of multicore systems.