JPH01162289A - Method for copying document file - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To eliminate the waste in copying processing time when a revised document is included in a document file by recording that the copying is completed on a working table. CONSTITUTION:While the directory of a source file is examined, and an applicable page is copied to the actual body area of a copying medium for each document module, the working table is referred to, and it is examined whether each applicable page is already copied or not before the page is copied to the copying medium in a basic procedure to prepare control information for the module and record the information in the directory of the copying medium. Thereafter, while the page is copied to the copying medium only when the page is not copied yet, it is recorded that the page is already copied on the working table. Thus, only the page added at the time of revising can be copied by the copying operation of a revised document module, and pages which exist from before the revising are not copied.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of Industrial Application This invention relates to a method for copying document files in an electronic file system or the like in which documents such as documents related to patent applications are filed on a recording medium such as an optical disk.

2. Description of the Related Art An example of the organization of document files in this type of electronic file system is shown in FIG. The information recording area of a medium such as an optical disk is divided into a physical area 1 in which image information of each page is recorded and a directory 2 in which management information is recorded.

One document module (also simply referred to as a document), which is a management unit, consists of a collection of image information of multiple pages. In the illustrated example, a set of pages 1 and 2 is defined as a document module with document number 1 (also simply referred to as document 1). In the document number 1 section of register 2, page 1 pointers (a, b) and page 2 pointers (c, d) are recorded. Pointers (a, b) are the beginning and end addresses of the portion where the image information of page 1 is recorded, and similarly pointers (c, d) are the recording addresses of page 2.

Further, document files such as patent application documents are often revised. Here, revising a document means adding a new page to all or some of the pages belonging to a registered document module and registering it as a revised document module.

In the example of FIG. 4, a new page 3 is added to document 1 consisting of page 1 and page 2, and this is defined as document 2 as a revised version of document 1. Page pointer entry of document number 2 in register 2, page 1 pointer (a,
b) and page 2 pointer (c, d) and page 3
pointers (e, f) are recorded. Further, in the revision history section of document number 2, data indicating that it is a "revised version of document 1" is recorded.

This method of additional recording accompanying revisions is commonly used in electronic file systems using write-once optical discs.

By the way, in this kind of system, for various purposes,
A registered document file may be copied to another medium. In conventional copying methods, even if a document file contains the above-mentioned revised document, it is copied as follows without taking this into account.

That is, it reads the information in the register 2 of the source file, reads the image information of the corresponding page from the physical area 1 according to the page pointer for each document, transfers it to the copy medium, and creates a new register on the copy medium. Ta.

This will be explained in detail according to FIG. First, the page pointers (a, b) (c, d) of document number 1 in register 2 are read, and the image information of pages 1 and 2 is read accordingly and recorded on the copy medium. Next, page pointer (a, b) (c, d) (e,
f), and accordingly, the image information of pages 1, 2, and 3 is read and recorded on the copy medium. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 5, the actual area of the copy file contains image information for two pages, pages 1 and 2, belonging to document 1, and pages 1 and 2 belonging to document 2, which is a revised document of document 1. The image information for three pages of .3 is recorded as independent information. In other words, pages 1 and 202 are recorded redundantly.

In the conventional method, the data in the revision history section of the register 2 is also read, but it is used only to transfer the data "revised version of document 1" to the copy file register.

Problems to be Solved by the Invention As mentioned above, in the past, copying has been carried out while virtually ignoring the existence of revised documents in document files. An unreasonable situation arises in which the image information of the same page is copied multiple times to the physical area on the side. This is a waste of recording capacity on the copy medium side and also a waste of copy time. In some cases,
When copying a document file from an optical disc to another optical disc of the same capacity, the copy disc may overflow due to the above-mentioned wasteful duplication of pages.

This invention was made in order to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems, and its purpose is to eliminate the above-mentioned duplicate page copies caused by revised documents, and to eliminate the need for unnecessary copying of document files. The objective is to provide a copying method.

As a means to solve the problem, the present invention examines the register of source files, transfers the corresponding page for each document module to the physical area of the copy medium, and creates management information for that module. In the basic procedure for recording in the register of copy media, before transferring each page to the copy medium, the working table is checked to see if the page has already been copied, and only if it has not been copied, the page is copied. In addition to transferring the page to the copy medium, the fact that the page has been copied is recorded in the working table.

Operation In the above-described method according to the present invention, in the copy operation of the revised document module, only pages added at the time of revision are copied, and pages existing before the revision are not copied.

Pages that existed before the revision are copied by the copy operation of the document module before the revision.

Embodiment First, an outline of the hardware of a system implementing the copying method of the present invention will be explained with reference to FIG.

In this example, a workstation consisting of a CPU 21, a ROMZ 2, a RAMZ 3, a display, a keyboard 5, etc., as well as two optical disk devices are connected to each other, one optical disk device 26 is loaded with a source file optical disk, and the other is An optical disc to be used as a copy medium is placed in the optical disc device trough. Under the control of workstation I,
A source file is reproduced from an optical disc device n, and a copy file is created by the optical disc device n as follows.

When performing copy processing, a copied table T as shown in Figure 3 is stored in RAMZ3 of the workstation.
1 and a management information address table T2 are created and used as follows.

The method of organizing document files remains the same as before.

Therefore, as shown in Figure 4, document 1 (document module with document number l) consisting of pages 1 and 2 is revised, and page 3 is added to pages 1 and 2 as revised document 2. The copying method of the present invention will be specifically explained using a registered document file as an example of a source file.

FIG. 1 shows a processing procedure of a copying method according to an embodiment of the present invention. This flowchart and Figures 3 and 4
This will be explained according to the diagram.

First, as i = 1, document number 1 from the source file
The management information of the document is read and pages included in the document are recognized (step 100). In the specific example, document 1 consists of page 1 and page 2. Next, it is checked in the copied table T1 whether page 1 has been copied. Table T1 is initially cleared and no copied mark is recorded anywhere. Therefore, the process proceeds to step 102, and the information on page i=1 of the source file is transferred to the physical area of the copy medium. After that, step 103 is executed and a copied mark is placed in the column of page 1 in the copied table TIK.

Next, in step 104, it is checked whether processing has been completed for all pages of document i. In the specific example, document 1
has not yet processed page 1 and page 2, and has only processed page 1. Then, in step 105, page j is set to ``2''.
” and return to step 101 described above. Then, the information on page 2 of the source file is transferred to the copy medium, and a mark indicating that page 2 has been copied is marked in the column of page 2 in the copied table T1.

Since all pages of document 1 have now been processed, the process advances from step 104 to step 106. This step 106
Now, let's look at the management information for document 1 read from the source file.
The management information of the document 1 is recreated based on the information and the recorded addresses of pages 1 and 2 on the copy medium, and is recorded in the register of the copy medium. At the same time, the recording address of the management information at this time is entered in the document number 1 column in the management information address table T2 in FIG.

All copy processing for document 1 is now complete. Next, the document number i is set to "2" and the process of FIG. 1 is repeated.

Since document 2 in the specific example includes page 1, page 2, and page 3, processing starts from page 1 first. When the page 1 column of the copied table T1 is checked in step 102, a copied mark is written there, so
Steps 102 and 103 are not executed, the process proceeds to steps 104 and 105, the processing target is updated to page 2, and the process returns to step 101. Since the column of page 2 in the copied table T1 is also marked with a copied mark, we can now proceed without executing steps 102 and 103.
The process advances to page 3 and returns to step 101.

Since the page 3 column of table T1 is not marked as copied, steps 102 and 103 are executed to transfer page 3 to the copy medium and write a copied mark in the page 3 column of table T1.

Document 2 ends at page 3, so next step 104
→Proceed to step 106, where the management information of document 2 for the copy file is created. First, when we look at the management information for document 2 in the source file, we see that it is a revised version of document 1 in the revision history column, so we check the document 1 column in the management information address table T2 to see that it is a revised version of document 1 in the revision history column. The address of the management information is read, and the management information of document 1 is read from the copy file according to the address. From this management information, the addresses of page 1 and page 2 in the copy file can be found. New management information for document 2 is created based on this information, and the management information is recorded in the copy medium register.

At the same time, the recorded address is entered in the corresponding column of table T2. This completes the processing for document 2 as well.

Effects of the Invention As explained in detail above, according to the method of copying a document file according to the present invention, if a revised document is included in the document file, the copy operation of the revised document only copies pages added at the time of revision. This eliminates the need to copy the same page over and over again as in the past, thereby eliminating wasted use of the capacity of the copy medium and wasted copy processing time.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart showing the processing procedure of a copy method according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram of a system that implements the copy method, and FIG. 3 is a diagram of a working table used in the copy method. Conceptual Diagram 1 FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram of an example of a document file, and FIG. 5 is a conceptual diagram of a copy file when the document file of FIG. 4 is copied by a conventional method. Name of agent: Patent attorney Toshio Nakao and 1 other person No. 1
Figure 2 Figure 2.

Claims (1)

[Claims] During the copy process, the register of source files is examined and the corresponding page is transferred to the physical area of the copy medium for each document module, and management information about that module is created and recorded in the register of the copy medium. Before transferring a page to the copy medium, refer to the working table to check whether the page has already been copied, and only if the page has not been copied, transfer the page to the copy medium, and also copy the page to the copy medium. A method for copying document files that records that the page has already been copied.