JP2002297662A - Method and device for editing structured document, terminal, and program - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method and a device for structured document editing which facilitate editing into a structured document in a structured document database where rewrite is not allowed and the retrieval of structured documents including the editing result. SOLUTION: A new constitutional element which is generated so that it is added to a structured document composed of a plurality of constitutional elements and stored in the structured documents database is stored while correlating the constitutional element to the structured document. A 1st retrieval request for retrieving the new constitutional element which has been stored and a 2nd retrieval request for retrieving the structured document stored in the structured document database are generated according to a retrieval request including the constitutional element and its value as a retrieval condition. When the new constitutional element retrieved at the 1st retrieval request is correlated to the structured document retrieved from the structured document database at the 2nd retrieval request, the new constitutional element is added to the structured document and displayed.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a method for editing a structured document stored in a structured document database having a hierarchical logical structure, and a structured document editing apparatus using the same.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art At present, with the evolution of IT (information technology),
An enormous amount of information has become readily available. On the other hand, there is also a problem that necessary information is buried in a large amount of data and cannot be fully utilized. Even if there is a large amount of information, it is meaningless if it cannot be used effectively.

[0003] Therefore, an activity of accumulating know-how and business data possessed by a specific individual or department that is important for the management of a company and utilizing it as "management assets", that is, knowledge management has been proposed. I have.

For example, depending on the type of a document such as a patent specification or a weekly report, the format is generally predetermined and unified into one format. While some documents are unified in one format, many free-form documents have no format at all.

Therefore, in order to realize knowledge management, a database is required which can store and manage all such documents having a predetermined document structure and other free-form documents.

[0006] XML is a technology expected as a core technology of next generation knowledge management. XML
(Extensible Markup Language)
e) is a standard document description language with flexible extensibility and coordination, and has been promised support from major vendors.

On the other hand, with the development of the Internet technology in recent years, a document sharing system on a network represented by the WWW (World Wide Web) has rapidly spread. In the WWW, documents on the network are currently
HTML (HyperText Markup Lan)
g.). H in this field
XML is expected as a next-generation document description language following TML. In XML, the structure of the document data and the display style can be defined separately, so that the document structure can be easily changed and the document can be reused. It is suitable for searching.

[0008] Such a document described in HTML and XML is called a structured document, and it is expected that the number of occasions in which the structured document is shared on a network will increase in the future. In particular, for a structured document described in XML, a search request (query) is issued from a client by specifying tag conditions, and a search system for searching for desired data from the structured document placed on a server is used. Construction is expected to spread. Hereinafter, a structured document on a network will be simply referred to as a document.

[0009] On the other hand, documents obtained through the WWW on the Internet are premised on being shared and viewed by an unspecified number of users, so that tags (or marks or comments) of the users cannot be normally added. It has become.

However, when the document is, for example, customer data browsed by a salesperson, a request arises that each salesperson wants to personally tag the priority (urgency) of visiting the customer or processing the case. There is. Alternatively, when the document is patent data, there may be a request to evaluate each patent or add a tag indicating the date, year, and date of browsing.

Therefore, in a system in which an unspecified number of users search and display a structured document from a structured document database for which rewriting is not permitted via a network, a mechanism that allows the user to add a personal tag is desired. I have.

Here, as a conventional technique for responding to the above demand, a method in which a user adds information such as a personal mark or a comment to a document is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-227.
No. 49 discloses this. In this case, the server providing the document previously holds the personal additional information database and the personal additional information management unit together with the document, and when the user displays the structured document, a mark or comment is added and displayed. There has been proposed a method of sharing and browsing a document with such personal additional information among a plurality of members in an organization.

However, in the above method, it is necessary to newly create both a server for providing a document and a client for displaying the document. Therefore, this method cannot be applied when the server providing the document belongs to an external organization and its configuration is not permitted to be changed.

Further, in the above method, since newly added personal additional information is assumed to be a mark or a comment, a function of searching for a structured document based on the personal additional information is not provided. However, for example, when the document is patent data, there may be a request that the user wants to search only the patents whose evaluation is “A”. further,
For example, since the tag of a document is the browsing date and its child elements may be "year", "month", and "day", it is hoped that the personal tag itself can have a hierarchical structure. It is rare.

As described above, there is a demand for a system capable of editing a structured document for adding a personal tag and searching for a structured document reflecting the edited contents without changing the configuration of a server that provides the document. ing.

In particular, it is desired that the client can search based on the added personal tag and that the personal tag can have a hierarchical structure.

[0017]

As described above,
In a mode in which a structured document is placed on the server side and a search request is issued from the client side via the network to search and display a desired structured document, even when rewriting of the structured document is not permitted, the user can perform In response to a request to perform editing by adding a personal tag,
The method disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-22749 has a problem that it cannot be applied when a change in the configuration of a server that provides a document is not permitted.

Further, the method disclosed above is for adding and displaying personally added information such as newly added marks and comments to a document, and for retrieving a structured document based on the personally added information. There was a problem that it could not be done.

Accordingly, the present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and has a structure of a server having a structured document database and providing a structured document stored in the structured document database in response to a request from a client. Without changing
In addition, without performing any operation on the structured document database, editing to add a personal tag to the structured document stored in the structured document database, and editing of the structured document reflecting the edited result It is an object of the present invention to provide a structured document editing method capable of easily performing a search, a structured document editing device using the same, a terminal device, and a program.

[0020]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention creates a new component to be added to a structured document consisting of a plurality of components stored in a structured document database having a hierarchical logical structure. Storing the created new component in association with the structured document, and searching for the new component stored in the storage unit based on a search request including the component and its value in a search condition. And a second search request for searching for a structured document stored in the structured document database, and generating the structured document database based on the second search request. When a new component retrieved based on the first search request is associated with the structured document retrieved from the above, it is necessary to add and display the new component in the structured document. Features .

According to the present invention, the structure of the side that provides a structured document (for example, a structured document management system and a WWW server) is not changed at all, and no operation is performed on the structured document database. It is possible to easily edit (process) a structured document on a structured document database for which rewriting is not permitted, and to search for a structured document including the edited result without having to perform the editing.

[0022]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Before describing embodiments of the present invention, a structured document management system will be described.

(Description of Structured Document Management System) Examples of structured documents include documents described in XML, SGML, or the like. SGML (Standard Genera)
Lizzed Markup Language)
This is a standard defined by the ISO (International Organization for Standardization). X
ML (extensible Markup Lang)
wage) is W3C (World Wide Wed)
b Consortium). These are structured document rules that enable each document to be structured.

Hereinafter, a description will be given by taking a document described in XML as an example of a structured document. Data defining the document structure of the structured document (document structure definition data) is called a schema. XML uses XML to define its schema.
-Schema and XDR (XML Data Redu
ced) and other schema languages have been proposed. Here, for example, a case of describing a schema in XDR will be described as an example.

The schema is also a structured document to be managed by the structured document management system, and may be called a schema document. In order to distinguish it from a schema document, a document having various contents such as a patent specification, an e-mail, a weekly report, and an advertisement may be referred to as a content document.

In the structured document management system, the above-mentioned schema document, the above-mentioned content document, and a query which describes the contents of a search request from a user as described later, that is, a query document, are also managed. Document ".

Hereinafter, unless otherwise specified, "document"
Is used to refer to all of the content document, schema document, and query document.

First, XML will be briefly described before describing the embodiment.

FIG. 3 shows an example of "patent" information as an example of a structured document described in XML. X
In ML and SGML, tags are used to represent the structure of a document. The tag has a start tag and an end tag. By surrounding the components of the document structure information with the start tag and the end tag,
It is possible to clearly describe a character string (text) delimiter in a document and to which structural element the text belongs.

Here, the start tag means that the element name is closed by symbols "<" and ">", and the end tag means that the element name is closed by symbols "<//" and ">". The content of the component following the tag is a text (character string) or a repetition of the child component. In addition, the start tag is "<
Attribute information can be set such as “element name attribute =“ attribute value ”>”. "<Patent DB></ Patent DB
A component that does not include text, such as ">", can also be represented as "<Patent DB />" as a simple notation.

The document shown in FIG. 3 has an element starting with a “patent” tag as a root, and an element set starting with “title”, “filing date”, “applicant”, and “summary” tags as its child elements. Exists. Also, for example, one text (character string) such as “XML database” exists in an element starting with a “title” tag.

Structured documents such as XML repeatedly include arbitrary constituent elements, or have a document structure that is not predetermined (cannot be defined by a schema of RDB (relational database) or OODB (object-oriented database)). Is common.

In order to logically represent a structured document as shown in FIG. 3, a tree representation as shown in FIG. 4 is used. The tree is composed of nodes (numbered and indicated by a circle), arcs (data-attached lines connecting the circles representing the nodes), and text surrounded by rectangles.

A node corresponds to a document object, and a plurality of arcs with labels corresponding to tag names and attribute names have emerged from the node. The tip of the arc is a character string (text) as a node or element value. Alphanumeric characters (# 0, # 49) described in the nodes are object IDs.

The tree structure shown in FIG. 4 is called a document object tree of the structured document shown in FIG.

FIG. 1 shows an example of the configuration of a structured document management system according to this embodiment. In FIG.
The structured document management system is roughly composed of a request control unit 1, an access request processing unit 2, a search request processing unit 3, a data access unit 4, a document storage unit 5, and an index storage unit 6. The document storage unit 5 and the index storage unit 6 are configured using, for example, an external storage device.

The system configuration shown in FIG. 1 can be realized by using software.

The request control unit 1 comprises a request receiving unit 11 and a result processing unit 12. The request receiving unit 11 receives a request from a user for storing a document, acquiring a document, searching for a document, and the like, and calls the access request processing unit 2. The result processing unit 12 performs a process of returning a result processed by the access request processing unit 2 to the requesting user.

The access request processing section 2 is composed of a plurality of processing sections corresponding to requests from the user for storing and obtaining documents. That is, it is configured by a document storage unit 21, a document acquisition unit 22, and a document deletion unit 23.

The document storage unit 21 performs processing for storing a document in a logically designated area in the document storage unit 5.

When a logical area in the document storage unit 5 is designated, the document acquiring unit 22 performs a process of acquiring a document existing in the designated area.

The document deletion unit 23 performs a process of deleting a document existing in a logical designated area in the document storage unit 5.

The document storage unit 5 is a structured document database. For example, as shown in FIG.
(Registered trademark) in a hierarchical tree structure like a directory structure.

As shown in FIG. 8, the structured document database can be expressed in the same manner as the tree structure of one structured document as shown in FIG. That is, a partial hierarchical tree (partial tree) below an arbitrary node is a structured document cut out from the structured document database, and is called a document object tree here. Each node is assigned an object ID. The object ID is
It shall have a unique numerical value in the structured document database.

It is assumed that a node that is the root of the hierarchical tree is assigned an object ID "# 0" for specifying that it is the root node.

A link is provided from the root node, that is, the node of "# 0" to the node of "# 1" having a "root" tag at the top. From the node "# 1",
A link to a “# 2” node having a “patent DB” tag at the top is provided. From the “# 2” node, a “# 42” node, a “# 52” node having a “patent” tag at the top,
A link to the “# 62” node is provided.

The “patent” information shown in FIG. 3 is “# 42”
It corresponds to the partial tree below the node. From this node, a link is provided to a node having a "title" tag, an "applicant" tag, a "summary" tag, and the like at the beginning, and from the terminal node, "XML database" and "T company". "XM
A link to a character string (element value) is provided.

The partial tree below the "# 52" node, "# 52"
Partial nodes below the "62" node are also parts corresponding to one piece of "patent" information.

By the way, for example, the element value “XML database” linked to the “# 43” node is:
It is connected to the “# 43” node with a special tag name “#value”. Since this tag name starts with “#”, it cannot be used as a standard tag name in the XML standard.

A structured document path is used to specify a specific node in such a structured document database. The structured document path is a character string starting with “uix: // root”. ix (Universal Identity)
“fier for XML) is a prefix character string indicating a structured document path.

For example, "uix: // root / Patent D
“B” corresponds to the node indicated by the arc to which “patent DB” is assigned from the “# 1” node, that is, the “# 2” node. In this way, by regarding the partial character string delimited by “/” from “root” as a tag name, the corresponding arc descends from the “# 0” node along the tag name sequence, and the last arc indicates the same. A node points to the location of the path.

For example, "ux: / root / Patent D
B / Patent ”is a“ # 42 ”node,“ ux: // ro
“ot / patent DB / application date / year” indicates the “# 45” node.

When a plurality of “patent” information is stored under the “# 2” node, that is, in the “patent DB”, an index is added to the structured document path to identify each “patent” information. Expression is possible.

If it is the first “patent” information of “patent DB”, “uix: // root / patent DB / patent [0]”
This is "uiix: // root / patent DB /
Patent ".

In the case of the second “patent” information of the “patent DB”, “uix: // root / patent DB / patent [1]”
If it is the fifth “patent” information of “DB”, “uix: //
/ Root / patent DB / patent [4] ".

The index storage unit 6 stores an element name occurrence index and a data occurrence index used at the time of retrieval.

The element name occurrence index is an index file in which a list of element names stored in the structured document database is associated with the position of the structured document (document object tree) in which each element name is at the head. It is. For example, as shown in the structured document database of FIG. 8, a structured document in which the element name “patent” (corresponding to “patent” information) is a node “# 42” or less, “# 5”
If there is a structured document under the “2” node and a structured document under the “# 62” node, these are indexed, and their parent nodes, “# 2”, as shown in FIG.
The nodes are stored in the element name occurrence index file in a chain from the “patent” key.

As described above, when indexing is performed at the parent node, the index file can be compressed.
In other words, if indexing is performed using the parent node, even if the number of child nodes increases, the size of the chain does not increase because the parent node is used instead. On the other hand, if real nodes are indexed, the chain size increases in proportion to the number of stored "patent" information.

The data occurrence index is an index file that associates a list of character string data stored in the structured document database with the position of a structured document (document object tree) in which each character string data is located. is there. For example, as shown in the structured document database of FIG. 8, character string data of "XML" (and
If a character string including a character string “XML” exists in a structured document under the “# 43” node and a structured document under the “# 49” node, these are indexed.
As shown in FIG. 10, the “# 43” node and the “# 49” node add “XML” to the data occurrence index file.
Stored in a chain from the key.

Note that another index file such as an inverted hierarchical index may be used. The inverted hierarchical index stores a correspondence between a certain node and its parent node (the parent node can be obtained from a certain node).

The logical designation area in the document storage unit 5 indicates a storage location of a document designated by a user using a structured document path. The structured document path is an expression that can be recognized by the user.

Returning to the description of FIG.

The data access unit 4 is a set of basic interfaces for accessing the document storage unit 5. The data access unit 4 includes a document object tree storage unit 47,
A document object tree deletion unit 48, a document object tree acquisition unit 49, a document character string acquisition unit 44, a path-based document object tree acquisition unit 45, a document parser unit 46,
It is composed of a composite document creating section 47 and an index updating section 48.

The document object tree storage section 41 performs a process of storing the document object tree in a physically designated area in the document storage section 5.

The document object tree deletion section 42 deletes the document object tree existing in the physically designated area in the document storage section 5.

The document object tree acquisition section 43 performs a process of acquiring a document object tree existing in a physically designated area in the document storage section 5.

The document character string acquisition unit 44 performs a process of converting a document object tree into a structured document (XML document).

Document Object Tree Acquisition Unit 4 from Path
Reference numeral 5 performs a process of analyzing a structured document path, specifying a physical area in the document storage unit 5, and extracting a document object tree existing in the area.

The document parser unit 46 reads the structured document input by the user, parses the structured document, checks the consistency, and further checks whether the schema as the document structure definition data is structurally valid. Perform verification. The output result is a document object tree. Document parsers are typically lex (lexical analyzer geo)
lexical analyzer (performs lexical analysis and decomposes into tokens) such as
another compiler compile
r) can be constructed in combination.

When storing a document, deleting a document, or the like, the synthetic document creating section 47 must check whether the schema matches the schema. The synthetic document creating section 47 creates and outputs data necessary for the checking.

The index updating unit 48 updates the element name occurrence index and the data occurrence index shown in FIGS. 9 and 10 each time the storage content of the structured document database is updated due to document storage or document deletion. .

The physical designated area in the document storage unit 5 is internal data indicating a unique document data location in a structured document database such as a file offset and an object ID. The data cannot be recognized by the user.

A process for searching for a document stored in the document storage unit 5 is performed. When the request receiving unit 11 of the request control unit 1 receives a document search request from a user, the search request processing unit 3 receives a query document described in a query language from the request receiving unit 11. Then, it accesses the index storage unit 6 and the document storage unit 5 through the data access unit 4 to acquire a document set that matches the search request, and outputs the result via the result processing unit 12.

FIG. 2 shows one use form of the structured document management system shown in FIG. 1. In FIG.
(World Wide Web) backend,
2 shows a case where the structured document management system 100 having the configuration shown in FIG. 1 is operating.

A WWW browser 103 operates on each of a plurality of (here, for example, three) client terminals (for example, personal computers, portable communication terminals, etc.) 102. Users can access WWW from each client terminal.
By accessing the server 101, the structured document management system 100 can be accessed. WWW
The browser 103 and the WWW server 101 are HTTP
(Hyper TextTransfer Proto
col). Further, the WWW server 101 and the structured document management system 100 communicate with each other by CGI (Comm.
on Gateway Interface) or C
OM (Component Object Mode)
1) and so on.

Requests such as document storage, document acquisition, and document search from the user are transmitted from the WWW browser 103, received by the structured document management system 100 through the WWW server 101, and processed by the WWW server.
The request is returned to the requesting WWW browser 103 through the server 101.

Hereinafter, (1) the storage function and (2) the search function of the structured document management system of FIG. 1 will be described in detail. In (3) Application Example, a case of patent search using concept search will be described as an example.

Storage Function The storage commands in the structured document management system of FIG. 1 include the following.

InsertXML (path, Nth, XML): document storage appendXML (path, XML): document storage getXML (path): document acquisition removeXML (path): document deletion setSchema (path, schema): schema storage getSchema ): Schema acquisition “insertXML” is a command for inserting a document at the Nth position below the structured document path specified in parentheses (hereinafter simply referred to as an insert command).

"AppendXML" is a command for inserting a document at the end of the structured document path specified in parentheses (hereinafter simply referred to as an additional command).

“GetXML” is a command (hereinafter referred to as a command) for retrieving documents below the structured document path specified in parentheses.
(Referred to simply as an acquisition command).

“RemoveXML” is a command (hereinafter simply referred to as a delete command) for deleting documents (documents other than schema documents, mainly content documents) below the structured document path specified in parentheses. is there.

“SetSchema” is a command for setting a schema in the structured document path specified in parentheses (hereinafter simply referred to as a schema storage command).

“GetSchema” is a command for extracting the schema set in the structured document path specified in parentheses (hereinafter simply referred to as a schema acquisition command).

Of the above commands, the processing for the insert command, the add command, and the schema storage command is executed by the document storage unit 21 of the access request processing unit 2, and the processing for the acquisition command and the schema acquisition command is performed by the document acquisition unit 22. The processing for the executed deletion command is executed by the document deletion unit 23.

Referring to FIG. 5, a case where an additional command is executed in the initial state of the structured document database (see FIG. 5A) will be described.

As shown in FIG. 5A, the initial state in which the “# 0” node and the “# 1” node are connected by a “root” arc is compared with “appendXML (“ ui
As a result of executing “x: // root”, “<patent DB />”), a “# 2” node and a “patent DB” arc are created as shown in FIG. 5B.

A case where an acquisition command is executed on the structured document database in the state shown in FIG. 5B will be described.

For example, “getXML (“ uix: ///
When “root”) is executed, “root” in FIG.
The document object tree below the “# 0” node indicated by the “t” arc is extracted, and is converted into an XML character string representation. As a result, as shown in FIG. 6, “<root>
A character string "<patent DB // </ root>" is extracted. The processing of the acquisition command is executed by the document acquisition unit 22 of the access request processing unit 2.

Next, an additional command for storing “patent” information as a content document (XML document) as shown in FIG. 3 is added to the structured document database in the state shown in FIG. 5B. The case of execution will be described. That is, in this case, “append XML (“ uix:
/// root / patent DB ”,“ <patent>... </ Patent> ”)”. In this command, ""<Patent> ... <
/ Patent>"" corresponds to the "patent" information shown in FIG.

When the processing of the additional command is executed,
As shown in FIG. 7, a document object tree (corresponding to FIG. 4) having the "# 42" node at the top is added below the "# 2" node.

Assume that the following additional command is repeatedly executed three times on the structured document database in the state shown in FIG. 5B.

"Append XML (" uix: // r
out / patent DB ”,“ <patent>... </ patent> ”) In the above command,“ <patent>.

Then, as shown in FIG. 8, the “# 42” node, the “# 52” node, the “# 6” node
A document object tree with the "2" node at the top is added.

Next, a case where an acquisition command for extracting three pieces of "patent" information is executed on the structured document database in the state shown in FIG. 8 will be described. In this case, “getXML (“ uix: // root / patent DB ”)” is executed. Then, a document object tree below the “# 2” node indicated by the “patent DB” arc is extracted, and converted into an XML character string expression (XML document). As a result, as shown in FIG.
B><patent>...</Patent><patent>...</Patent><patent>...</Patent></ patent DB>

In the structured document database, data defining the document structure of the content document (XML document) such as the “patent” information, that is, a schema is also managed.

FIG. 12 shows an example of a schema that defines the document structure of an XML document. Here, XM
XDR (XML-D
data Reduced). Of course, X
Another document structure definition language such as ML-Schema may be used.

The schema shown in FIG. 12 defines the document structure of the “patent” information shown in FIG. 3 by XDR. As can be easily understood from FIG. 12, the schema is also XM
This is a structured document in the L format. It starts with a component that starts with a “Schema” tag, and has “El” as its child element.
There is an element set starting with the “elementType” tag.

In the schema shown in FIG. 12, for example, a child element starting from the first “ElementType” tag means the following information.

Document definition of element having “patent” tag (“ElementType name =“ patent ”)”
It is.

The child element is only an element (“content
= "EltOnly"").

It is composed of child elements starting from “title”, “filing date”, and “summary” tags (“element
type = “title”,... Further, the order is uniquely determined (“order =” se
q ")).

-In addition to the document structure definition of the element starting from the "patent" tag, "title", "applicant", "summary"
It describes the document structure definition of "year", "month", "day" and "filing date". That is, excluding the “filing date”, the “title”
The child element of the component starting from the tags of “applicant”, “summary”, “year”, “month” and “day” is defined as text only (“content =“ textOnly ””).

The child elements of the constituent elements starting from the “application date” tag are a sequence of “year”, “month”, and “day”.

A case where a schema storage command for storing the schema document shown in FIG. 12 is executed on the structured document database in the state shown in FIG. 8 will be described. In this case, "setSchema (" uix: /
/ Root / patent DB ","<Schema> ... <// S
chema> ”)”. In this command,
“<Schema>... </ Schema>” ”corresponds to the schema document shown in FIG.

By executing the above command, as shown in FIG. 13, a “#schema” arc is added below the “# 2” node, followed by a document object tree having the “# 3” node as the top node. Is added. Since the schema itself is expressed in an XML document, the tree can be expanded similarly to the case of storing the content document such as the “patent” information described above.

In FIG. 13, arcs starting with “@”, such as “@name”, correspond to attributes. Tag name "#s
Since “chema” also starts with “#” and “$”, it cannot be used as a standard tag name in the XML standard.

Since the schema document shown in FIG. 12 is stored under the “# 2” node, the document structure of a document to be stored under the “# 2” node is changed to the schema document shown in FIG. It is required to conform to the document structure defined by That is, the schema shown in FIG. 12 is set below the “# 2” node.

When the schema shown in FIG. 12 is set under the “# 2” node, as shown in FIG. 14, the file of the document object of the “# 2” node contains the document under the “# 2” node. An attribute value indicating that the schema exists is set in the object tree.

After the schema shown in FIG. 12 is set under the “# 2” node, “patent” information as shown in FIG. 3 that matches the document structure defined by this schema is shown in FIG. As described above, when a document object tree is stored in the structured document database, an attribute value indicating that the schema shown in FIG. 12 exists in the document structure of this document is assigned to each document object constituting the document object tree. Set. For example, an attribute value indicating that a schema exists for a file of each document object constituting the document object tree (for example,
“1” is set in “schema conformance”. Figure 1
In FIG. 4, each document object (node) conforming to the schema is indicated by a double circle. Each document object indicated by a double circle has a document structure definition corresponding to the document object.

FIG. 15 conceptually shows the contents of the file of each document object. For example, the file of the document object having the object ID “# 42” includes
The attribute value is described together with information (for example, an arc, a pointer value to a linked document object, and the like) related to another document object linked to the document object. When there is no schema to be applied to the document object, the value of “schema conformance” is “0”.

FIGS. 16 and 17 show an example in which the concept hierarchy used in the search is represented by a structured document in the structured document management system of FIG. 1 as needed. The “concept” information shown in FIGS. 16 and 17 is a content document described in XML.

In the example of the “concept” information shown in FIG. 16, an “information model” used as one classification axis for classifying the contents of a patent document in a so-called patent search is represented by a concept hierarchy. “Concept” information surrounded by “concept” tags has a document structure having a nested structure. That is, in the example of FIG. 16, the concept “document”, the concept “relation”,
The concept "object" exists. In addition, as a child concept of the concept “document”, there are a concept “structured appeal” and a concept “unstructured document”. Further, as a child concept of the concept “structured document”, the concept “XML” and the concept “ SGML "exists.

The description example of the “concept” information shown in FIG. 17 expresses a classification axis “information operation” different from that in FIG. 16 in a concept hierarchy. In the example of FIG. 17, as the child concepts of the concept "information operation", the concept "search", the concept "storage", the concept "processing",
The concept "distribution" exists.

The “concept” information as shown in FIGS. 16 and 17 can be stored in the structured document database in the same manner as the “patent” information described above. That is, for example, first, for the structured document database in the state shown in FIG. 8, “appendXML (“ uix: // ro
ot ”,“ <concept DB / >> ”)”, a “# 201” node and a “concept DB” arc are created as shown in FIG. In this state, when the “concept” information shown in FIG. 16 is stored, “appendXML” is used.
(“Uix: // root / concept DB”, “<concept name>... </ Concept>”)). In this command, "<concept name> ... </ concept>" corresponds to the "concept" information shown in FIG.

When the processing of the additional command is executed,
As shown in FIG. 19, “# 2” is placed under the “# 201” node.
A document object tree with the “02” node at the top is added.

As described above, in the structured document management system of FIG. 1, a huge number of XML documents (content documents, schema documents, query documents, etc.) with different document structures registered in the structured document database From FIG. 18,
As shown in FIG. 19, it is handled as one huge XML document in a tree shape having a “root” tag at the top. Therefore, to access a partial XML document, a huge X
By using a unified access means that does not depend on a document structure such as a path to the ML document, it is possible to search and process the XML document widely.

By setting a schema in a part of the structured document database, it is possible to check whether the document structure of the document to be stored matches the document structure defined by the schema. Can be automatically performed (described later).

(1-1) Document Storage Processing Next, the document storage processing operation of the structured document management system of FIG. 1 will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

When any one of an insert command, an add command, and a schema storage command is transmitted from the client terminal to the structured document management system as a document storage request, and is received by the request receiving unit 11, FIG. The processing operation shown in FIG.

The predetermined display device of the client terminal includes:
For example, a screen as a user interface as shown in FIG. 31 provided by the structured document management system 100 (for example, the request control unit 1) is displayed.

On the screen shown in FIG. 31, a list (menu) of operation items for the structured document management system 100 is displayed. As operation items, “XML registration / deletion”,
There are “schema setting” and “XML search”.

When the user selects “XML registration / deletion” on this screen using a pointing device such as a mouse, for example, the storage / deletion of the document as shown in FIG.
A screen as a user interface for performing deletion is displayed.

In FIG. 32, the element name (tag name) of the current tree structure of the document structured document database is simply displayed in the area W1 so that the user can understand it. In FIG. 32, only the element names in the upper hierarchy are displayed, but up to the terminal element names can be displayed. An area W2 is an input area of a structured document path, and an area W1
The structured document path is input in accordance with the display contents of. In the area W3, a document to be stored is input, and the acquired document is displayed.

For example, as the structured document path, “root
When inputting "t", "root" in the area W1 may be selected with a mouse or the like. Then, as shown in FIG. 32, "uix:" is displayed in the input area of the structured document path in the area W2.
// root "is displayed. In addition, newly, "Patent D
To add an element "B", "patent DB" is input in the area W3 as shown in FIG. And
When the “Registration” button B1 is selected, an appendXML (“uix: // root”,
An additional command “<patent DB />”) is transmitted to the structured document management system. The structured document management system receives the additional command and executes a process as described below. As a result, for example, as shown in FIG.
A “2” node and a “patent DB” arc are created. Also,
As shown in FIG. 33, “patent DB” is additionally displayed under “root” in the area W1.

Now, for example, the document “<A” is displayed in the area W3 on the document storage / deletion screen as shown in FIG.
> Data </A> ”(or input by reading from a predetermined recording medium such as a CD-ROM),
When "Patent [0]" in the area W1 is selected with a mouse or the like, "ux: /// root" is displayed in the input area W2 of the structured document path.
t / Patent DB / Patent [0] "is displayed. And
When the “Registration” button B1 is selected, an appendXML (“uix: // root”,
An additional command “<patent DB />”) is transmitted to the structured document management system.

In this case, for example, when the structured document database is in the state shown in FIG.
An example in which an additional command ML (“uix: // root / patent DB / patent [0]”, “<A> data </A>”) ”is received will be described.

When the request receiving unit 11 receives the additional command, the structured document path “uix: // root / patent DB”, which is two parameters in the additional command, is used.
/ Patent [0] "and the document"<A> data </A>"(hereinafter referred to as a stored document) to the document storage unit 21 (step S1).

First, the document storage section 21 stores the document parser section 4
6 to pass the stored document. The document parser unit 46 reads the stored document, performs syntax analysis, and checks whether the document structure of the stored document is in a correct format defined by XML (step S2).

If an error is found in the consistency check (step S3), a message indicating "document storage failure" is returned to the client terminal via the document storage unit 21 and the result processing unit 12 (step S4).

If no error is found in the consistency check, the document storage unit 21 then passes the structured document path from the path to the document object tree acquisition unit 45. From the path, the document object tree acquisition unit 45 specifies a physical area in the document storage unit 5 from the structured document path, and thereby a node (document object Ox0) represented by the structured document path existing in that area. ) Is extracted (step S5). If the specification of the structured document path is correct, the object ID of the document object Ox0 can be acquired (step S6). In that case, the process proceeds to step S8.

For example, in the case of the additional command, "# 4
Since the “2” node becomes the document object Ox0, “# 42” is acquired as the object ID, and a document object tree including this “# 42” node (for example, all descendant nodes of the “# 42” node and The document object tree including all (sibling) nodes in the same hierarchy as the “# 42” node and the “# 2” node that is the parent node of the “# 42” node is acquired.

If the corresponding document object Ox0 cannot be found from the designated structured document path, an error occurs (step S6), and the document storage unit 21 and the result processing unit 12 send a "document storage failure" to the client terminal.
Is returned (step S7).

For example, the structured document database is shown in FIG.
In the state shown in FIG. 8, when the structured document path is expressed as “ux: // root / other” as a parameter of the additional command, there is no corresponding document object, so that in step S6 Error
Proceed to step S7.

Next, in step S8, it is checked whether or not a schema exists in the document object Ox0. In this inspection, as described above, since the attribute value is described in the file of each document object, this value may be checked. If the value of “presence / absence of schema attribute” of the document object Ox0 is “1”, the process proceeds to step S9.

Hereinafter, the process of step S9 in FIG. 20 (the process of the composite document creating unit 47) will be described in detail with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

The document storage unit 21 passes the document object tree obtained in step S5 to the composite document creation unit 47.

The synthetic document creating section 47 traces this document object tree back from the document object Ox0, and returns “Sc
document object O having a "hema" tag as a child element
x1 is searched (step S21).

For example, in the structured document database shown in FIG. 14, “# 4” as the document object Ox0
From the “# 2” node, which is the parent node of the “2” node, “Sc”
hema "tag ("#
3 "node) (" Sch
ema "tag as a child element).
The node becomes the document object Ox1. Therefore, the process skips step S22 and proceeds to step S23.

The document object Ox1 to the document object Ox0, further tracing the arc from the document object Ox0, and a document object tree Ot1 downstream of the document object consisting of all the child nodes whose attribute value is "1". (Step S2)
3).

For example, the structured document path of the parameter in the additional command is “ux: // root / patent DB”
/ Patent [0] ", the document object tree Ot1 is composed of nodes"# 42 "to"# 49 "(see FIG. 14).

Next, the process proceeds to a step S25.

In the step S25, the document object tree of the stored document is inserted into the document object tree Ot1 as a child node of the document object Ox0. The resulting new document object tree is referred to as a document object tree Ot2.

The document object tree Ot2 is converted to an XM
The document is converted into an L document and output to a temporary file A (step S27).

For example, the document object tree (in this case, one document object) of the document "<A> data </A>" of the parameter stored in the additional command is changed from the "# 42" node to the "# 49" node. FIG. 22 shows the result of converting the document object tree Ot2 of the composite document obtained by inserting it as a child node of the "# 42" node into the document object tree Ot1 composed of XML documents into an XML document. This composite document contains “<
A> data </A> ”.

The XML document shown in FIG. 22, that is, the composite document is output to the temporary file A and temporarily stored in the temporary file A.

On the other hand, the document object tree Ot3 below the schema tag is converted into an XML document and output to a temporary file B (step S28). That is, the schema document is temporarily stored in the temporary file B.

For example, FIG. 23 shows a result obtained by converting a document object tree having the “# 3” node which is the document object tree Ot3 as a top node into an XML document. The XML document shown in FIG.
And temporarily stored in a temporary file B.

As shown in FIG. 22, the temporary file A (“tmp000.xml”) contains, in addition to the original “patent” information element, a stored document, that is, for example, “<A> data”. </A> ”is inserted. Also, "xmlns =" x-schema: tm
p001. xml ””, a temporary file B
(“Tmp001.xml”). This description specifies the temporary file B to which the schema applied to the “patent” information is output.

Next, the description returns to FIG.

In step S10, the document storage unit 21 provides the document parser unit 46 with the temporary file A of the composite document and the temporary file B of the schema, and checks the validity of the document structure of the composite document. That is, the document parser unit 46 reads the temporary file A of the synthetic document and the temporary file B of the schema, and checks whether or not the document structure of the synthetic document matches the document structure defined by the schema.

For example, the composite document shown in FIG.
When the validity check is performed with the schema shown in FIG. 3, an element “A” not defined by the schema exists in the synthetic document. (Step S1
1). In this case, a message indicating "document storage failure" is returned to the client terminal via the document storage unit 21 and the result processing unit 12 (step S12).

For example, a message as shown in FIG. 35 is displayed on a predetermined display device of the client terminal.

Next, the structured document database shown in FIG.
In the state shown in FIG. 5, "append XML (" ui
x: / root / patent DB ","<patent> ... </ patent>")"
This will be described with reference to FIG. In the same manner as described above, the object ID “# 2” of the document object Ox0 is acquired (step S5). Since a schema exists in this document object (step S8), a composite document is created in step S9.

In this case, a link is provided from the “# 2” node itself, which is the document object Ox0, to the node (“# 3” node) having the “Schema” tag at the top (top). The “2” node becomes the document object Ox1 (step S21 in FIG. 21). That is, the document object Ox0 and the document object Ox1
Are the same (step S22), the process proceeds to step S29, where the document object tree of the stored document “<patent>... </ Patent>” is converted into an XML document and output to the temporary file A (step S29).

For example, as shown in FIG. 24, the temporary file A (“tmp000.xml”) contains “patent” information as a stored document, that is, “<patent>... </ Patent>” here. Has been output. Also, "xmln
s = “x-schema: tmp001.xml” ”and a temporary file B (“ tmp001.xml
l)).

Next, the process proceeds to a step S28. As shown in FIG. 25, a result obtained by converting the document object tree of the schema having the “# 3” node as the top node into an XML document is output to the temporary file B.

In step S10 of FIG. 20, when the validity of the composite document shown in FIG. 24 and the schema shown in FIG. 25 are checked, the document structure of the composite document and the document defined by the schema are determined. The structure matches. In this case, the process proceeds from step S11 to step S13.

At step S13, the document object tree of the stored document is added below the document object Ox0. That is, the document storage unit 21 assigns an object ID to each of the document objects (files) constituting the document object tree of the stored document, and links the document object Ox0 to the first document object of the document object tree of the stored document. Can be Then, the document objects (files) constituting the document object tree of the stored document are stored in the document storage unit 5 by the document object tree storage unit 41.

Then, the process proceeds to a step S14 to update the index in the index storage unit 6.

If the attribute value of the document object Ox0 is “0” in step S8, the validity of the document structure of the composite document using the above-described schema is not checked, and the Proceeding to S13, the document object tree of the stored document is stored in the document object Ox.
0 (step S13), and the index in the index storage unit 6 is updated accordingly (step S13).
14).

(1-2) Document Acquisition Processing Next, the document acquisition processing operation of the structured document management system of FIG. 1 will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

FIG. 26 shows a case where one of an acquisition command and a schema acquisition command is transmitted as a document acquisition request from the client terminal to the structured document management system and accepted by the request accepting unit 11. Performed processing operation.

For example, when the user selects (clicks) “Patent DB” in the area W1 on the document storage / deletion screen as shown in FIG. 36 with a mouse or the like, the input area W2 of the structured document path becomes "Ux: // root / Patent D
B "and" getXML ("uix:
/// root / patent DB ")" is transmitted to the structured document management system.

Here, for example, when the structured document database is in the state shown in FIG.
(“Ux: // root / patent DB”) ”will be described as an example.

Upon receiving the acquisition command, the request receiving unit 11 passes the structured document path “uix: // root / patent DB”, which is a parameter in the acquisition command, to the document acquisition unit 22 (step S31).

The document obtaining unit 22 passes the structured document path from the path to the document object tree obtaining unit 45. From the path, the document object tree acquisition unit 45 specifies a physical area in the document storage unit 5 from the structured document path, and thereby a node (document object Ox5) represented by the structured document path existing in that area. ) Is taken out (step S32). If the specification of the structured document path is correct,
Since the object ID of the document object Ox5 can be obtained (step S33), in that case, the process proceeds to step S35.

For example, in the case of the above acquisition command, "#
Since the “2” node is the document object Ox5, “# 2” is acquired as the object ID, and the document object tree Ot5 (“# 2” node, “# 42” node to “# 42” node) below this “# 2” node is acquired. "# 4
9 "node,"# 52 "node or less,"# 62 "node or less) are acquired (step S35).

In step S32, the designated document object Ox5 is extracted from the designated structured document path.
If not found, an error occurs (step S3).
3) Return a message indicating "document acquisition failed" to the client terminal via the document acquisition unit 22 and the result processing unit 12 (step S34).

The document object tree Ot5 obtained in step S35 is converted into an XML document by the document character string obtaining unit 44. For example, in the case of the above acquisition command, the acquired XML document includes three “patents” as shown in FIG.
It becomes an XML document of information.

The document acquisition unit 22 outputs the XML document as shown in FIG.
L (extensible Style Langua)
ge)) and returns it to the client terminal (step S37).

In the client terminal, X shown in FIG.
The ML document is converted into HTML data using a style sheet, and is displayed in an area W2, for example, as shown in FIG.

By using XSL, an XML document can be converted into various forms. It can be converted to an XML document with a different syntax, and an HTML page can be generated from the XML document.

(1-3) Document Deletion Processing Next, the document deletion processing operation of the structured document management system of FIG. 1 will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

When a deletion command is transmitted from the client terminal to the structured document management system as a document deletion request and is received by the request receiving unit 11, FIG.
The processing operation shown in FIG.

For example, when the user selects (clicks) “Patent DB” in the area W1 on the document storage / deletion screen as shown in FIG. 36 with a mouse or the like, the input area W2 of the structured document path becomes "Ux: // root / Patent D
B "is displayed, and when the" delete "button B2 is selected," removeXML ("uix: // root /
A patent DB “)” delete command is transmitted to the structured document management system.

Here, for example, when the structured document database is in the state shown in FIG. 14, “removeX
ML ("uix: // root / patent DB / patent [0]
An example in which a delete command “/ application date“) ”is received will be described.

When the request receiving unit 11 receives the deletion command, the structured document path “uix: // root / patent DB / patent [0] / filing date” which is a parameter in the deletion command is deleted by the document deleting unit. 23 (Step S
41).

Next, the document deletion unit 23 passes the structured document path from the path to the document object tree acquisition unit 45.
From the path, the document object tree acquisition unit 45 specifies a physical area in the document storage unit 5 from the structured document path, and thereby a node (document object Ox0) represented by the structured document path existing in that area. ) Is extracted (step S42).
If the specification of the structured document path is correct, the object ID of the document object Ox0 can be obtained (step S43). In that case, the process proceeds to step S45.

For example, in the case of the above delete command, “# 4
Since the “4” node is the document object Ox0, “# 44” is acquired as the object ID, and a document object tree including this “# 44” node (for example, all descendant nodes of the “# 44” node and A document object tree including all (sibling) nodes in the same hierarchy as the “# 44” node, a “# 42” node that is a parent node of the “# 44” node, and a “# 2” node that is the parent node ) To get.

If the corresponding document object Ox0 is not found from the designated structured document path, an error occurs (step S43), and the document terminal 21 sends a "document deletion failure" via the document storage unit 21 and the result processing unit 12. Is returned (step S44).

Next, in a step S45, it is checked whether or not a schema exists in the document object Ox0. In this inspection, as described above, since the attribute value is described in the file of each document object, this value may be checked. If the attribute value of the document object Ox0 is “1”, the process proceeds to step S46.

Hereinafter, the processing of step S46 in FIG. 27 (the processing of the synthesized document creating unit 47 (for the delete command)) will be described in detail with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

In FIG. 28, the same parts as those in FIG. 21 are denoted by the same reference numerals.

The document storage unit 21 passes the document object tree obtained in step S42 to the composite document creation unit 47.

The synthetic document creating section 47 traces this document object tree back from the document object Ox0, and returns “Sc
document object O having a "hema" tag as a child element
x1 is searched (step S21).

For example, in the structured document database shown in FIG. 14, “# 4” as the document object Ox0
From the "# 2" node upstream of the "4" node
Since the link to the node (“# 3” node) having the “ma” tag at the top (top) is provided (“Schem”).
The “# 2” node becomes the document object Ox1 because the “a” tag is included as a child element).

The document object Ox1 to the document object Ox0, further tracing an arc from the document object Ox0, and a document object tree Ot1 downstream of the document object consisting of all the child nodes having the attribute value of the document object of "1". (Step S2)
3).

For example, if the structured document path of the parameter in the above-mentioned additional command is “ux: // root / patent DB”
/ Patent [0] / filed date ", the document object tree Ot1 includes nodes"# 42 "to"# 4 ".
9 "node (see FIG. 14).

Then, the process proceeds to a step S26 to delete the document object tree below the document object Ox0 from the document object tree Ot1. The resulting new document object tree is referred to as a document object tree Ot2.

The document object tree Ot2 is converted to an XM
The document is converted into an L document and output to a temporary file A (step S27).

For example, the structured document path “uix: // root / patent DB /
The document object tree below the “# 44” node indicated by “Patent [0] / filing date” is changed from “# 42” node to “# 4”.
Document object tree Ot1 composed of "9" nodes
FIG. 2 shows the result of converting the document object tree Ot2 of the composite document obtained by deleting the
It is shown in FIG. This synthetic document is obtained by deleting data of “<application date>... </ Application date>” from the original “patent” information.

The XML document shown in FIG. 29, that is, the composite document is output to the temporary file A and temporarily stored in the temporary file A.

On the other hand, the document object tree Ot3 below the schema tag is converted into an XML document and output to the temporary file B (step S28). That is, the schema document is temporarily stored in the temporary file B.

For example, FIG. 30 shows a result of converting a document object tree having the “# 3” node, which is the document object tree Ot3, as a top node into an XML document. The XML document shown in FIG.
And temporarily stored in a temporary file B.

Next, the description returns to FIG.

In step S47, the document deleting section 21 gives the document parser section 46 the temporary file A of the composite document and the temporary file B of the schema, and executes the document structure of the composite document in the same manner as in the document storage processing. Check the validity of

For example, the composite document shown in FIG.
When the validity check is performed with the schema shown in FIG. 0, there is no element called “filing date” defined by the schema in the synthetic document. An error occurs (step S4
8). In this case, a message indicating "document deletion failed" is returned to the client terminal via the document deletion unit 21 and the result processing unit 12 (step S49).

It is to be noted that the structured document database shown in FIG.
In the state shown in, “removeXML (“ ui
When the delete command “x: // root / patent DB / patent [0]”) ”is processed according to FIG. 27, the combined document as shown in FIG. Is output. The temporary file B is the same as in FIG.

At this time, when the validity of the synthesized document shown in FIG. 24 and the schema shown in FIG. 30 are checked, the document structure of the synthesized document matches the document structure defined by the schema. Therefore, the process proceeds from step S48 to step S50.

In the step S50, the document object O
Delete the document object tree below x0. That is, the document object tree deletion unit 42 stores (the files of) each document object constituting the document object tree of the document object Ox0 or lower in the document storage unit 5.
Removed from. For example, from “# 2” node to “# 4”
The file of the document object under the "2" node is deleted.

Then, the flow advances to a step S51 to update the index in the index storage section 6. Further, “Patent [0]” is not displayed in the area W1 of the display screen of the client terminal as shown in FIG.

When the attribute value of the document object Ox0 is “0” in step S45, the validity of the document structure of the composite document using the above-described schema is not checked, and the Proceeding to S50, the document object tree below the document object Ox0 is deleted (step S50), and the index in the index storage unit 6 is updated accordingly (step S51).

(1-4) Schema Setting, Document Storage Using Schema When the user selects “Schema setting Win” on the screen shown in FIG. 31 by using a pointing device such as a mouse, etc., FIG. A screen as a user interface for setting the schema as shown is displayed.

When the user inputs, for example, a schema of “patent” information as shown in FIG. 12 into the area W3, and sets the input schema in a node under “patent DB”, the area W1 From the “Patent DB” by clicking with a mouse or the like (in the area W2, “uiix: // r
"Oot / Patent DB" is displayed), "Schema setting"
Select button B3. Then, "setSchema
(“Ux: // root / patent DB”, “<Sche
ma> ... </ Schema>")" is transmitted to the structured document management system. The processing of this command is the same as the document storage processing operation described above.

Next, "uix: // root / Patent D"
A case where “patent” information is to be stored under “B” by inputting “patent” information using a schema that has already been set in nodes below “patent DB” will be described.

First, a schema is obtained. For example, FIG.
When a “schema” is selected from a region W1 of the screen for storing / deleting a document as shown in FIG. 8 using a mouse or the like, “uiix: /// root” is displayed in a document path input region W2.
t / Patent DB / # Schema "
"GetXML (" uix: // root / patent DB /
A schema acquisition command “Schema”) is transmitted to the structured document management system.

The processing of this command is the same as the above-described document acquisition processing. The XML document returned from the structured document management system is displayed in the area W3 on the screen in FIG.

As shown in FIG. 38, in a region R3, a data input region of “patent” information is set and displayed for each element. In accordance with this display, the user may input data. For example, data input areas such as "title" and "year" are hierarchically arranged and displayed. The user can easily create a stored document having a document structure defined by the schema by inputting data into the data input area.

When "patent DB" is selected in the area W1 using a mouse or the like as a storage destination of the "patent" information input in the area W3, a structured document path is stored in the area W2 as a structured document path.
“Uix: // root / patent DB” is displayed. After that, when the “register” button B1 is selected, “appen
dXML (“uix: // root / patent DB”, “<
An additional command "patent> ... </ patent>") "is transmitted to the structured document management system.

In this case, since the stored document has been input in advance according to the schema, no error occurs in the validity check in step S10 in FIG.

(2) Search Function Search commands in the structured document management system shown in FIG. 1 include the following.

Query (ql) "query" is a command (hereinafter referred to as a search command) for executing the query ql in parentheses as a parameter and obtaining the resulting XML document.

The query is, as shown in FIG.
(Structured QueryLanguag
This is a structured XML document that describes search positions, search conditions, information extraction parts, and the like in a language similar to e). Query documents are also managed by the structured document management system.

[0215] The element starting from the "kf: from" tag has a description for specifying a search position and associating a variable with a value of a document element. There is a description, "kf:
The element starting with the “select” tag describes the output format of the search result.

The search includes a simple search and a concept search.
Simple search is to search and extract information that satisfies the search condition specified in the query. Concept search is the search specified in the query using the concept information specified in the query. It searches and extracts information that satisfies the conditions.

FIG. 40 shows an example of a simple search query. The query in FIG. 40 is, for example, in the structured document database in a state as shown in FIG. 14, in the document group of “patent” information stored under the node indicated by the “patent DB” arc, “1999” And "P
C "means a search request to enumerate the" title "of a document (" patent "information) having an element of" summary "such as" C ".

According to the description of the element starting from the “kf: from” tag, the “title”, “year”, and “summary” of the “patent” information are added to the variables “$ t”, “$ y”, and “$ s”, respectively.
Is assigned.

The description of the element starting from the “kf: where” tag makes a comparison that the variable “$ y” = “1999”. The component “MyLike” is a function for detecting a variable “$ s” having a value similar to “PC” using the variables “$ s” and “PC” as arguments.

By describing the element starting with the “kf: from” tag, the variable “$ t” is used as an output value.

The “kf: star” tag is an ambiguous expression of the structure, for example, “<patent><kf:star><
"Year>" means "an element which exists as a descendant element of an element whose tag name is" patent "and whose tag name is" year "".

FIG. 41 shows a search result using the simple search query of FIG. This search result is also an XML document.

FIG. 42 shows an example of a concept search query. The query shown in FIG.
The structured document database in the state shown in
For searching for a document group of "patent" information stored under the node indicated by the "patent DB" arc using "concept" information stored under the node indicated by the "concept DB" arc Search request. Here, the value of the child element of the tag having the value of the concept “peripheral device” includes the concept “SCS”.
I "," memory "," HDD ", and the like.
Although not shown in FIG. 18, it is assumed that each component of the “patent” information includes an element starting with a “keyword” tag.

That is, the query shown in FIG. 42 retrieves “list the titles” of documents (“patent” information) having any of the concepts below the concept “peripheral device” as the value of the element “keyword”. Means request.

According to the description of the element starting from the “kf: from” tag, the values of the “title” and “keyword” elements of the “patent” information are substituted into the variable “$ t” and the variable “$ k”, respectively. You. The value of the child element of the tag having the value of “peripheral device” (“SCSI”, “memory”, “HDD”, etc.) is substituted for the variable “$ x” as “concept” information.

According to the description of the element starting from the “kf: where” tag, “$ k” = “peripheral device” or “$
A comparison is made that “k” = “$ x”.

Next, the document search processing operation of the structured document management system of FIG. 1 will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

[0228] On the screen shown in FIG.
When "L search Win" is selected using a pointing device such as a mouse, a screen as a user interface for performing a document search as shown in FIG. 44 is displayed.

In the search screen of FIG. 44, the element name (tag name) of the current tree structure of the structured document database is simply displayed in the area W1 so that the user can understand it, as described above. .

The area W2 is an area for inputting a search target range (a search range in a tree structure), a search condition, and the like. The search result is displayed in the area W3.

For example, among documents having a heading “patent” under “uix: // root”, a character string “document” is included in a “title” tag, and “1998”
In the case of a search request of "search for documents created after the year", "root" is selected from the area W1 with a mouse or the like, and a structured document path is input as a search target range. Then, "patent" is input as the top node (in this case, "patent" may be input by selecting the "patent" from the area W1 with a mouse or the like). In addition, as a search condition, the contents of “the value of the element“ title ”includes the character string of“ document ”” and “the value of the element“ year ”is“ 1998 ”or more” are set in the preset data input area. Should be entered.

Thereafter, by selecting the "search" button B21, for example, a query as shown in FIG. 45 is transmitted to the structured document management system together with an additional command for storing the query in the structured document database. Is done. The storage location of the query is determined in advance, and the system automatically sets the parameters of this additional command. For example, when the structured document database is in the state shown in FIG. 18, the structured document path as a parameter indicating the storage location of the query is “uix: //
/ Root / query DB ". The other parameter of the additional command is the query document.

Upon receiving the above query (step S101), the request receiving unit 11 passes the query to the search request processing unit 3. Then, the parameter of the additional command for storing the query document is passed to the document storage unit 21. This additional command is processed in the same manner as described above, and the query is stored in the document storage unit 5.

For example, in the case of a query as shown in FIG. 42, the structure is expanded in the structured document database as shown in FIG. 46, and the structured document path “uix: // root /
It is linked to a node under “# 301” node indicated by “query DB”.

On the other hand, the search request processing unit 3 accesses the index storage unit 6 and the document storage unit 5 through the data access unit 4 based on the received query, and acquires a document set that matches the search request. The information requested in the query is extracted and output via the result processing unit 12.

For example, in the case of the above query, it is efficient to first search for a query that satisfies the condition that “the character string“ document ”is included in the“ title ”tag”. Therefore, the object ID of the node (document object) linked to the character string “document” is obtained using the data occurrence index as shown in FIG. Then, for each of them, the document object tree is traced back to the upstream side by one, and “Title”
When it reaches the tag name of "patent", the document object tree Ot11 below that node is extracted when it reaches the tag name of "patent".

Next, from the plurality of extracted document object trees Ot11, a document object tree Ot12 in which the value of the element “year” is “1998” or more is extracted.

This document object tree Ot12 is a document that matches the contents of the above query. Further, according to the request contents of the above query, each document object tree Ot
Then, a structured document path to the top node No. 12 is obtained (step S102).

Note that the above-described search processing is not limited to the above-described method, and various efficient search methods using index information are possible.

The search request processing unit 3 integrates the results obtained in step S102 to create an XML document as a search result (step S103).

For example, the XML document of the search result is as follows: <out> <result> ux: // root / patent DB / patent [0] </ result> <result> uix: // root / patent DB / patent [2] </ Result> </ out>

The search request processing unit 3 includes the search result processing unit 12
Through the XML document with the style sheet,
Return to the requesting client terminal (step S10
4).

In the client terminal, X shown in FIG.
The ML document is converted into HTML data using a style sheet, and is displayed in the area W12, for example, as shown in FIG.

Similarly, a schema search can be performed.

For example, from among documents having “schema” at the top of “uix: // root”,
In the case of a search request of "search for a schema having tag names of" patent "and" summary "", as shown in FIG. 47, "root" is selected from the area W1 with a mouse or the like and set as a search target range. , Enter the structured document path. Then, “#schema” is input as the top node. In addition, as a search condition, "patent"
What is necessary is to input the content "includes the character string""and" includes the character string "abstract" in the attribute name of the element "into the preset data input area.

Thereafter, by selecting the "search" button B21, the query describing the above search request (see FIG. 48) is added to the structured document database together with an additional command for storing the query in the structured document database. Sent to the system.

By the way, in the case of the above query, for example, "[#
A search that matches the condition of “having“ schema ”as the first tag” ”is performed. Then, the object ID of the node (document object) linked to the element “#schema” is obtained using the element name occurrence index as shown in FIG. Then, for each of them, the document object tree is traced to the downstream side, and when the attribute name reaches the element “patent” and “summary”, the document object tree having the head tag “#schema” Extract Ot21. The document object tree Ot21 is a document that matches the content of the query. Further, according to the request content of the query shown in FIG. 48, each document object tree Ot2
1 to determine the structured document path to the top node.

If there are a plurality of document object trees Ot21, the search request processing unit 3 puts together the structured document paths to the respective top nodes, and outputs XML as a search result.
A document is created, and the above-mentioned XM
The L document is returned to the requesting client terminal together with the style sheet.

At the client terminal, the XML document received as a search result is converted into an HTM using a style sheet.
The data is converted into L data and displayed in the area W12, for example, as shown in FIG.

At the client terminal, one of the search results
When one schema is selected and displayed, for example, FIG.
Along with a screen for storing / deleting a document as shown in FIG. 8, a data input area of “patent” information is set and displayed for each element in the area W3.

The user can easily create a stored document having a document structure defined by the schema by inputting data into this data input area.

For example, when “patent DB” is selected in the area W1 as a storage destination of the “patent” information input in the area W3 in FIG. 38 by using a mouse or the like, “uix: // root / patent DB "is displayed. After that, when the “register” button B1 is selected, “a”
ppendXML ("uix: // root / Patent D
B ","<patent> ... </ patent>")" are transmitted to the structured document management system.

In this case, since the stored document has been input in advance according to the schema, no error occurs in the validity check in step S10 in FIG.

In a similar manner, a query can be searched. By searching for a query, an existing query obtained as a search result can be processed and reused (query reuse).

The search for the query is performed in the same manner as the search for the structured document as described above, and the search range is a part of the document object tree on the structured database in which the query group is stored.

For example, a case will be described in which a query including “patent DB” in the “kf: from” tag is searched from the structured document database in the state as shown in FIG. FIG. 49 shows a query describing such a search request.

[0257] The query shown in FIG.
A query that includes “patent DB” in the “kf: from” tag is searched from among the queries existing under the “# 301” node indicated by the “root / query DB”, and the content (the element whose tag name is “query”) is searched. Enumerate the following document object tree).

Note that the contents of the “kf: as” tag include the variable “$ elt” and the “kf: from” tag includes “patent D”.
The document object tree below the element whose tag name of the query including "B" is "query" is substituted.

When the query is processed by the search request processing unit 3, similarly to the above, for example, using the element name occurrence index as shown in FIG.
The object ID of the (document object) of the node linked to the element "m" is obtained. Then, for each of them, the document object tree is traced downstream to the arc, and when the tag name "patent" is reached, the arc is further traced upstream to "quer".
When the tag name "y" is reached,
document object tree Ot31 having "y" as the first tag
Is extracted. This document object tree Ot31 is a document that matches the content of the query.

When a plurality of document object trees Ot31 are retrieved, they are integrated to create an XML document, and return it to the client terminal together with the style sheet.

In the client terminal, one of the search results
When one query is selected and displayed, for example, FIG.
The content of the search request described in the query is displayed in the area W11 of the search screen shown in (1) in a state where data is input to each data input area.

[0262] From this state, the user can select "" ux: //
Search for documents created after "1998" that contain the character string "document" in the "title" tag from among the documents having "patent" at the top tag under "/ root". "
"Document" in the search request described in the query is changed to "XML" and the "Search" button B21 is selected. Then, "Patent" under "uix: // root" is set as the first tag. From the documents you have, add "XM
A query including a character string "L" and meaning "search for documents created after 1998" is transmitted to the structured document management system.

As described above, in the structured document management system of FIG. 1, a huge number of XML documents (content documents, schema documents, query documents, etc.) having different document structures registered in the structured document database From FIG. 18,
As shown in FIG. 19, it is handled as one huge XML document in a tree shape having a “root” tag at the top. Therefore, it is possible to easily search for a document that meets the search condition from a vast number of documents having various schemas and different document structures.

Also, since the query used for the search is a structured document, by storing it as a log in the structured document database, an application that reuses a past query can be easily constructed.

(3) Application Example Next, an application example of the above-described concept search to a patent search will be described.

FIG. 50 shows an example of a structured document database in patent search, which stores "concept" information in addition to "patent" information.

The most important work in a patent search is to collect relevant “patent” information, analyze the “patent” information from various viewpoints, and create a patent map (see FIG. 54). is there. Conventionally, in order to create a patent map, the vertical axis and the horizontal axis in the patent map are determined in advance, and accordingly, a search is sequentially performed using any item on the vertical axis and any item on the horizontal axis as search conditions. It was done in a way that was very costly. However, by using the structured document management system, the cost of this part can be significantly reduced.

Here, the map means the vertical axis (y-axis).
Are sorted and arranged using the x-axis and the y-axis as the classification axes, with the search result using the arbitrary items arranged in a row and the arbitrary items arranged in the horizontal axis (x-axis) as search conditions.

In the structured document management system, when a user of a client terminal intends to create a patent map as shown in FIG. 54, the user is required to make a structure as shown in FIG. 50 displayed on a display device on the client terminal. With reference to the current tree structure of the structured document database, on the search screen shown in FIG. 51, the path of the “patent” information to be analyzed and the axis of analysis (for example, x-axis and y-axis) Are input to the areas W21 and W22, respectively. The element serving as the axis of the analysis may be either the element of “patent” information or the element of “concept” information in the structured document database.

For example, in FIG. 51, “function” and y are plotted on the x-axis.
The element of "concept" information called "technology" is input to the axis.

[0271] Thereafter, the user presses the "execute" button B31.
When is selected, a query as shown in FIG. 52 is sent from the client terminal to the structured document management system of FIG.

In the query in this case, from the document group of the “patent” information stored under the node indicated by the “patent DB” arc, the query is stored under the node indicated by the “concept DB” arc. , One of the child elements of the concept "function" and one of the child elements of the concept "technology"
Search for "patent" information that is included in the value of elements such as and "summary". As the search result, the child element of "function" and the child element of "technology" and the "public number" of the "patent" information corresponding to them
List the pairs with Is a search request.

The concepts “function” include “search”, “store”, and so on.
There is a child element called "analysis support", and the concept "technology"
It is assumed that there are child elements such as “implementation database”, “anti-structure database”, and “natural language processing”.

The search request processing unit 3 of the structured document search system having received the above query uses, for example, a data occurrence index as shown in FIG. 10 to convert each child element (character string) of the concept “function”. The object ID of the linked node (document object) is obtained. Then, for each of them, when the document object tree is traced upstream to the tag “patent”, the document object tree below that node is traced downstream, and the child element (character) of the concept “technology” is further traced. When the tag name linked to any of the columns is reached, the document object tree and the character string (element value) linked to the “public number” tag are extracted. In this way, for each of the extracted “patent” information, the corresponding set of the child element of “function”, the child element of “technology” and the “public number” is integrated as shown in FIG. An XML document as a search result is created and returned to the requesting client terminal together with a predetermined style sheet.

[0275] The display device of the client terminal that has received these displays a patent map in the form of a table as shown in FIG.

As described above, by simply designating a desired concept as an "axis", information accumulated in the structured document database is tabulated and classified based on the concept designated as an "axis" and displayed on a map. But can be done easily. That is, the information stored in the structured document database can be easily tabulated and classified from various viewpoints using the “concept” information.

(Explanation of Embodiment of the Present Invention—Editing of Structured Document) Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

It is assumed that the structured document stored in the structured document database is not allowed to be rewritten. Even in such a case, the user edits the structured document retrieved from the structured document database via the client terminal 102 according to the individual purpose of use,
There is a request that it has been processed.

Information to be added to the structured document retrieved from the structured document database includes, for example, personal evaluation, urgency (of case processing) in daily report, important person degree in personnel data, and a plurality of specific There is information that the user wants to share within the user group consisting of the users, but other users want to keep secret.

In the following, when rewriting to a structured document is not possible, the structured document can be edited (processed) without performing any operation on the structured document database. A structured document editing function that enables a search for a document including a result will be described.

FIG. 55 shows an example of the configuration of the client terminal 102 for realizing the functions described above.

The client terminal 102 shown in FIG.
Is a WWW (World Wid) as shown in FIG.
1 shows a case in which a structured document management system 100 that operates on the back end of eWeb) and has the configuration shown in FIG. 1 is accessed. The function of each component of the client terminal 102 shown in FIG.
03 can also be implemented.

In the case of FIG. 55, the client terminal 102 and the WWW server 101 are, for example,
P (Hyper Text Transfer Pro)
The WWW server 101 and the structured document management system 100 communicate with each other by CGI (Commo).
n Gateway Interface) or CO
M (Component Object Model)
It shows a case where communication is performed by, for example.

In the configuration shown in FIG. 55, the client terminal 102 includes a user tag registration unit 201, a search request input unit 202, a search result display processing unit 203, and a document editing unit 2.
04, extended document search request input unit 205, user tag storage unit 206, additional document extraction unit 207, search request separation unit 20
8, an additional document search unit 209, an additional document storage unit 210, and a document synthesis unit 211.

The client terminal 1 having the configuration shown in FIG.
02, the user first registers a tag for personal use, that is, a user tag, and adds a new component surrounded by the user tag to the structured document read from the structured document database. To edit the structured document. At this time, from the user's point of view, a new component is added to the structured document, and the structured document itself is actually edited. However, depending on this editing, no operation is performed on the structured document database. Therefore, from the viewpoint of the structured document database, the stored structured document is simply read and provided to the client terminal 102. That is,
The structured document stored in the structured document database is not rewritten.

[0286] The addition position of the new component (in the structured document) is a predetermined fixed position. Here, it is assumed that the new component is added as the last component of the structured document. I do. Note that the addition position of the new component is not limited to the “last” as described above, but may be added as the first component, that is, the first component, or in some cases, the second component from the top. , 3
Third,... May be added in the middle of the structured document. In the present invention, the position at which a new component is added is not particularly limited, but it is preferable to add the last component to the end of the structured document as the last component as in the present embodiment.

[0287] An XML-structured document including new components surrounded by a user tag added to the structured document is called an additional document.

In order to reflect the above-mentioned editing result in the search,
The new component (including the additional document) is stored in association with the structured document to which the new structured document is added.

At the time of search, it is possible to specify search conditions based on new components. In this case, a query (extended query) that describes search conditions specified by the user, etc.
Cannot be sent to the structured document management system 100 as it is, the query such as a search condition specifying a new component is removed from the query, and then the query is sent to the structured document management system 100. At the same time, a query for an additional document for searching for an additional document that satisfies the search condition specifying the new component is also created, and the additional document is searched using the query for the additional document.

Then, after the additional document obtained as a search result of the additional document is combined with the structured document as the search result sent from the structured document management system 100, it is presented to the user as an extended document.

The user tag registration section 201 is for registering a user tag (tag name and its possible value (range)) in the user tag storage section 206.

The search request input unit 202 generates a (normal) query that can be transmitted to the structured document management system 100 as it is, based on the search target range input by the user, the search request, and the like.

The extended document search request input unit 205 generates an extended query based on a search target range input by a user, a search request, and the like.

[0294] The search result display processing unit 203 converts the search result obtained as a result of executing the above-mentioned ordinary query in the structured document management system and the search result obtained as a result of executing the above-mentioned extended query into the client terminal 102. Processing for displaying on the display device is performed.

At this time, the search result may be displayed using a style sheet sent together with the search result from the structured document management system. However, the present invention is not limited to this case. Alternatively, the search result may be displayed. Further, as described later, when displaying an extended document as a search result, the style sheet may be changed to be used for the extended document.

The document editing unit 204 stores the user tag storage unit 2
A new structured element is created using the user tag registered in 06, and is added to the structured document obtained as a result of executing the above-mentioned ordinary query in the structured document management system. This is for editing a structured document stored in.

[0297] The additional document extraction unit 207
Take out the new component added to the structured document in step 4,
Then, the document ID of the structured document to which the new component has been added is added to create an additional document that is a structured document in the XML format. The additional document created here is stored in the additional document storage unit 210.

[0298] The search request separating unit 208 generates a normal query obtained by removing the search condition designating the user tag from the expanded query generated by the expanded document search request input unit 205, and a query for an additional document.

The additional document search unit 209 searches the additional document storage unit 210 for an additional document that satisfies the search conditions described in the query based on the query for additional document.

The document synthesizing unit 211 synthesizes the additional document obtained by executing the query for additional document and the structured document obtained by executing the ordinary query to create an extended document.

Here, it is assumed that the structured document database stored in the document storage unit 5 of the structured document management system 100 is in a state as shown in FIG.

The storage state of the structured document in the structured document database shown in FIG. 56 is such that nodes and arcs are simplified, and nodes are represented by element names and attribute names instead of object IDs. Mostly, it shows the structure of the structured document database.

In FIG. 56, there is a “patent DB” node below the “root” node. Under the “patent DB” node, a plurality of “patent” information having a document structure as shown in FIG. 57 is stored.

As shown in FIG. 57, the “patent” information is
The element starting from the “patent” tag is the root, and its child elements are “document ID”, “title”, “applicant”,
There is a set of elements starting with the “application number” and “summary” tags. The document ID is identification information for identifying each of all the structured documents stored in the structured document database, and is added when each structured document is stored in the structured document database. It is. Document ID
May be a component automatically numbered and added by the system 100 side.

Now, the processing operation of the client terminal 102 having the configuration shown in FIG. 55 will be described with reference to the flowcharts shown in FIGS.

First, the document editing process will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

(Step S201) User tag registration section 2
01 indicates that the user has, for example, information for personal use,
An element name (user tag name) of a new component used for adding to the structured document on the structured document database,
This is for registering the value (range) of the element.

The user tag registration section 201 displays a user tag registration screen as shown in FIG. 58 on the display device of the client terminal 102, for example. On this screen,
Desired element name (tag name) and its possible values (range)
Is input, and the "registration" button B101 is clicked with a mouse or the like, whereby the user tag can be registered.

In FIG. 58, up to three user tags can be registered for one user. Desired tag names are entered in the tag name input areas W101 to W103, and possible values (ranges) of the respective tag names are input to the input areas W104 to W106. For example, in FIG. 58, as a tag name “evaluation” and its possible values,
"A", "B", "C", "D", "E" are input,
In the tag name “processing form”, “until disclosure”, “request for examination”, and “foreign application” are input as possible values.

[0310] In the registration area of each user tag, "option" buttons B102 to B104 are provided, respectively. This button is used when a child element is set as an element of each user tag. For example, it is assumed that “view date” is registered as a user tag. If you want to register "year", "month", and "day" as child elements of this "view date" element,
After clicking the "option" button, these may be registered.

Now, on the user tag registration screen shown in FIG. 58, a desired user tag and its possible value (range)
After clicking "Register" button B101, the user tag is registered in the user tag storage unit 206 in association with the user ID as the identification information of the user as shown in FIG. .

In FIG. 59, the user tag storage unit 206
Stores a user tag name registered by the user and a possible value (range thereof) in association with the user ID.

(Step S202) The search request input unit 202 in FIG. 55 is for generating a query for performing a normal search request to the structured document management system 100 without specifying a user tag. .

The search request input unit 202 displays a search screen as shown in FIG. 60 on the display device of the client terminal 102, for example.

Area W111 on search screen shown in FIG. 60
, The element names (tag names) of the current tree structure of the structured document database are simply displayed so that the user can understand them.

Areas W112 to W116 are areas for inputting a search target range (a search range in a tree structure), a search condition, and the like.

For example, among the documents stored under “uiix: // root / patent DB”, “applicant”
In the case of a search request for searching for a document that includes a character string of "T company" in the tag, the "patent D"
By selecting "B" with a mouse or the like, "u" appears in the input area W112 of the structured document path to be specified as the search target range.
ix: // root / patent DB ". Also, as a search condition, the value of the element “Applicant”
In this case, “Applicant” may be input in the tag name input area W113 and “Company T” may be input in the value input area W114. For example, when inputting a tag name, a button of a list box in the input area may be clicked to display a list box, and a desired tag name may be selected from the list box. In this case, the list box displays the tag names of the components of all the structured documents currently stored in the structured document database.

Thereafter, by selecting the “execute search” button B111, for example, “Uix: // root
/ Patent DB ", the structured document management system 10 executes a query with a content of" search for documents containing the character string "T company" in the "applicant" tag from among the documents stored under "patent DB".
Sent to 0. At this time, the query may be transmitted to the structured document management system together with an additional command for storing the query on the structured document database.

[0319] The structured document management system 100 that has received such a query executes the query and sends back the search result together with the style sheet to the requesting client terminal 102. Client terminal 102
Then, the search result display processing unit 203 converts the XML document as the search result into HTML data using a style sheet and displays it on the display device of the client terminal 102.

[0320] The processing for displaying the search result in the search result display processing unit 203 includes the structured document management system 1
It is not always necessary to use the style sheet sent together with the search result from 00. The search results may be displayed in a predetermined style. Also,
As will be described later, when displaying an extended document as a search result, the style sheet may be changed and used in correspondence with the extended document.

Now, as a result of executing the above query,
On the display device of the client terminal 102, a list of document IDs of structured documents satisfying the above search condition is displayed as shown in FIG. By selecting a desired document ID, for example, “DOC100” from the list,
The contents of the document ID are displayed, for example, as shown in FIG.

In FIG. 62, the “patent” information of the document ID “DOC100” is displayed for each component in association with the element name (tag name).

(Step S203) Document Editing Unit 204
Is for editing a structured document retrieved from a structured document database using a user tag. The editing here means adding a new component surrounded by a user tag to the structured document as described above.

New component (in structured documents)
The additional position is a predetermined fixed position.
This new component is added as the last component of the structured document.

For example, when editing a structured document displayed on the search result browsing screen shown in FIG. 62, an "edit" button B12 provided on the screen is provided.
1 may be clicked with a mouse or the like. Then, a document editing screen as shown in FIG. 63 is provided from the document editing unit 204 to the display device of the client terminal 102.

In the document editing screen shown in FIG. 63, the document ID “DOC10” displayed on the previous search result browsing screen is displayed.
Input areas W131 to W136 for adding new components in addition to the components of the structured document “0” are displayed. Here, since one user can register up to three user tags, up to three new components can be added.

When adding a component having the user tag name “Evaluation” to the structured document on the document editing screen of FIG. 63, the user first inputs “Evaluation” in the input area W131, and inputs the evaluation. In the area W132, as the value, for example,
What is necessary is just to input "A".

Also in this case, when inputting the tag name, the user clicks the button of the list box provided in the input area W131, and enters the user tag name registered by the user as shown in FIG. May be displayed, and a desired tag name may be selected from the list box. In this case, a user tag name stored in association with the user ID of the user is read from the user tag storage unit 206 and displayed in the list box.

Similarly, when inputting the element value, the user clicks the button of the list box provided in the input area W132 to display the tag name registered by the user as shown in FIG. May be displayed in a list box in which the element values are displayed in a list, and a desired element value may be selected from the list box. In this case, the list box contains
An element value corresponding to the user tag name stored in association with the user ID of the user is read from the user tag storage unit 206 and displayed.

As shown in FIG. 63, after inputting the component having the user tag name “Evaluation” into the structured document on the document editing screen, the “Edit Complete” button B131 is clicked with a mouse or the like. By clicking, the editing of the structured document ends.

(Step S204) When the “edit completed” button B131 is clicked, the additional document extraction unit 207 in FIG. 55 extracts an additional document from new components added on the document edit screen.

That is, the additional document extracting unit 207 adds the new component (for example, <evaluation> A
</ Evaluation>) and the document ID of the structured document to which this new component has been added (for example, here,
<Document ID> DOC100 </ document ID>)
An additional document in an XML format as shown in FIG. 65 is created.

(Step S205) The additional document as shown in FIG. 65 is stored in the additional document storage unit 210.

As shown in FIG. 66, the additional document storage unit 210 stores each additional document in a tree structure based on the logical structure of the additional document for each user. The data structure for storing the additional document in the additional document storage unit 210 may be the same as the structured document database of the structured document management system 100.

In the present invention, since the data structure for storing the additional document is not particularly limited, for example, in addition to storing the additional document as a structured document in the XML format, The user tag name and its value, which are important components, may be stored in a table format together with the document ID and user ID of the structured document to which the new component is added. The point is that the additional document storage unit 210 stores at least a new component in association with the user who owns the new component and the structured document to which the new component is added. I just need. However, in consideration of the search efficiency, it is desirable to store the structured document in the XML format in the same data structure as the structured document database of the structured document management system 100 as in the present embodiment.

For example, in the data structure of the additional document storage unit 210 as shown in FIG. 66, the user ID “abc”
The structured document path of the storage area of the additional document corresponding to the user is “uix: // root / userabc”. FIG.
In FIG. 66, the additional document shown in FIG. 5 is stored in a storage area that can be expressed as a structured document path “ux: // root / userabc / additional-document [2]”.

Next, the operation of the client terminal 102 shown in FIG. 55 for searching for an extended document will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. 77.

(Step S211) The extended document search request input unit 205 shown in FIG. 55 executes the processing of the extended document as a result of adding a new component to the structured document retrieved from the structured document database as described above. It is for searching.

A search screen for searching for an extended document is provided, for example, by the search request input unit 202 shown in FIG.
When the "extended document search" button B113 provided on the search screen as shown in FIG.
It is provided from the extended document search request input unit 205.

The extended document request input unit 205 displays an extended document search screen as shown in FIG. 67 on the display device of the client terminal 102, for example.

The extended document search screen shown in FIG.
Like the search screen shown in FIG. 0, the search target range based on the structured document database (search range on the tree structure)
And areas W142 to W1 for inputting search conditions and the like
In addition to 46, areas W147 to W152 are provided for inputting search conditions specifying a user tag.

In the area W141 on the extended document search screen shown in FIG. 67, the element names (tag names) of the current tree structure of the structured document database are simply displayed so that the user can understand them. I have.

The areas W142 to W152 are areas for inputting a search target range (search range in a tree structure), a search condition, and the like.

For example, among the documents stored under “ux: // root / patent DB”, “applicant”
In the case of a search request to search for a document that includes the character string “Company T” in the tag and also includes the character string “A” in the “Evaluation” tag ”, the“ patent DB ”is moved from the area W141 to the mouse or the like. In the input area W142 of the structured document path to be designated as the search target range, "uix:
// root / patent DB ".

Also, in order to set the content of “the value of the element“ applicant ”includes the character string“ T company ”” as a search condition, “applicant” is entered in the tag name input area W143. What is necessary is just to input "T company" in the value input area W144. For example, when inputting a tag name, a button of a list box in the input area may be clicked to display a list box, and a desired tag name may be selected from the list box. In this case, the list box displays the tag names of the components of all the structured documents currently stored in the structured document database.

As a search condition, “the value of the element“ user tag name “evaluation” includes the character string “A” ””
What is necessary is to input “evaluation” in the user tag name input area W147 and “A” in the value input area W148 in order to set the content. For example, when inputting a user tag name, the user clicks a button in the list box in the input area to display a list box in which the user tag names registered by the user are displayed as shown in FIG. You may make it display and select a desired tag name from it. In this case, a user tag name stored in association with the user ID of the user is read from the user tag storage unit 206 and displayed in the list box.

Similarly, when inputting the element value, the user clicks the button of the list box provided in the input area W147 to display the tag name registered by the user as shown in FIG. May be displayed in a list box in which the element values are displayed in a list, and a desired element value may be selected from the list box. In this case, the list box contains
An element value corresponding to the user tag name stored in association with the user ID of the user is read from the user tag storage unit 206 and displayed.

(Step S212) Thereafter, by selecting the “execute search” button B141, for example, as shown in FIG. 68, “Uix: // root / Patent D
B. Search for documents that contain the character string "T company" in the "Applicant" tag and the character string "A" in the "Evaluation" tag from the documents stored under "B". A query including a search condition specifying the user tag of the content (here, called an extended query to distinguish it from a normal query) is generated.

Note that the extended query is the same as a normal query except that it includes a description of a search condition specifying a user tag.

(Step S213) Since the query shown in FIG. 68 contains the search condition specifying the user tag in the 10th and 15th lines, the query is sent to the structured document management system as it is. Can not do.

Therefore, the search request separating unit 208 shown in FIG.
Generates, for example, a normal query in which a search condition specifying a user tag is removed from the extended query shown in FIG. 68 and a query for an additional document, which are generated by the extended document search request input unit 205, for example. I do.

In order to generate a normal query from the extended query, the description of the search condition specifying the user tag may be simply deleted.

For example, if the 10th and 15th lines are deleted from the description of the extended query shown in FIG. 68, an ordinary query for sending to the structured document management system 100 as shown in FIG. Queries can be generated.

On the other hand, in order to generate a query for an additional document, it is assumed that search request separating section 208 previously stores templates of several types of queries.

For example, the query shown in FIG.
ix: / root / patent DB ”, the“ applicant ”tag contains the character string“ T company ”, and the“ evaluation ”tag contains the character string“ A ”. Search for documents that contain ", but the query is generally limited to the scope of the search (in the case of the above query,
“Ux: // root / patent DB”), the components of the structured document (“applicant” and “evaluation” in the case of the above query) and their values (“T company” and “A” in the above query) )) (In the case of the above query, there are two search conditions).

Therefore, a template for an additional document query as shown in FIG. 70 is created in advance. The template of the query for additional document shown in FIG. 70 includes a part (t1) describing the range of the search target in the description of the query and a part (t2, t) describing the component as the search condition.
3) In the part (t4, t5) that describes the value of the component,
By substituting the range of the search target specified by the user via the extended query and the components and their values as the search condition, the query can be actually executed immediately.

The template for the additional document query shown in FIG. 70 is a template when there are two search conditions, but a plurality of templates may be prepared in advance according to the number of search conditions.

For example, in the case of the extended query shown in FIG. 68, since there is only one search condition specifying the user tag, the search request separating unit 208 sets the search condition as shown in FIG. Use a query template.

In the template of FIG. 71, a portion t1 describing the range of the search target includes an additional document storage unit 210 predetermined for the user who made the search request (for example, the user whose user ID is "abc"). "Uix: // root / user a" to specify the storage location of the additional document
bc ”is assigned. Also, the tag name of the user tag in the extended query of FIG. 68, that is, “evaluation” is substituted into the portion t2 describing the component as the search condition. Further, the value “A” specified for the user tag “evaluation” in the extended query in FIG. 68 is substituted into the part t4 describing the value of the component.

As a result, an additional document query as shown in FIG. 72 is generated.

The additional document query shown in FIG. 72 is
The content is that "search for documents containing the character string" A "in the" evaluation "tag from the additional documents stored under" ux: // root / user abc "."

(Step S214) For example, a normal query as shown in FIG. 69 generated from the extended query as shown in FIG. 68 is transmitted to the structured document management system, and based on the query, a normal query as shown in FIG. As shown in
A search is performed on the structured document database.

(Step S215) On the other hand, the additional document query as shown in FIG. 72 generated from the extended query as shown in FIG.
Passed to

The additional document search unit 209 in FIG. 55 receives the additional document query as shown in FIG.
The additional document storage unit 210 is searched for an additional document that satisfies the search condition described in the query.

The additional document search unit 209 stores the additional document in a data structure as shown in FIG. Therefore, the additional document search unit 209 uses the structured document path specified as the search target range in the additional document query (for example, “ux: // root / user abc” in the case of the query in FIG. 72). From the additional documents stored in the logical storage area, an additional document including the character string "A" in the "evaluation" tag is searched.

(Steps S216 and S217) The document synthesizing unit 211 shown in FIG. 55 uses the structured document management system 100 to execute, for example, a search result obtained by executing a normal query as shown in FIG. 69. At the same time, the additional document search unit 209 receives a search result obtained by executing an additional document query as shown in FIG. 72, for example.

For example, as a search result obtained by executing a query for an additional document as shown in FIG. 72, an additional document as shown in FIG. 65 is obtained, and a normal query as shown in FIG. 69 is executed. It is assumed that a structured document as shown in FIG. 57 is obtained as a search result obtained as a result.

(Steps S218 to S219)
The document synthesizing unit 211 extracts the additional document and the “document ID” included as a component of the structured document.
In this case, the value of the “document ID” is the same “DOC10
Since it is "0", the component "<evaluation> a </ evaluation>" of the user tag "evaluation" in the additional document of FIG. 65 is added and synthesized as the last component of the structured document of FIG. An extended document which is an XML document as shown in FIG. 73 is created.

[0369] Note that, when an extended document is created, the new component (in the structured document) is added at a predetermined fixed position in the same manner as in the case of editing. This new component is added as the last component of. It should be noted that the addition position of the new component is not limited to the “last” as described above,
.. May be added as the first component, that is, the first component, or in some cases, the second, third,... In the present invention, the position at which a new component is added is not particularly limited, but it is preferable to add the last component to the end of the structured document as the last component as in the present embodiment.

If an additional document corresponding to the structured document having the document ID "DOC108" is found, an extended document is created in the same manner as described above.

The extended document group created in this way is passed to the search result display processing unit 203 as a search result as an execution result of the extended query as shown in FIG. 68, for example.

(Step S220) The search result display processing section 203 first displays a list of document IDs of extended documents on a search result list screen as shown in FIG. 74, for example. On the search result list screen, for example, “DOC100” and “DOC108” are displayed as the document IDs of the extended documents. From among these, the user, for example, "D
By clicking and selecting "OC100" with a mouse or the like, the contents of the extended document of the document ID are displayed as shown in FIG.

On the search result browsing screen shown in FIG. 75, the content of the extended document of the “patent” information of the document ID “DOC100” is associated with the element name (tag name) for each component. it's shown. In this case, the user tag "Evaluation"
Are also displayed. That is, the document editing unit 2
04 is displayed reflecting the editing result.

In the above description, the client terminal 102 has all of the above structured document editing functions. However, the present invention is not limited to this case. For example, as shown in FIG. A structured document editing device 301 connected to a predetermined network so as to be able to communicate with the system 100 is provided, and this structured document editing device 301 is provided with some of the functions of the client terminal 102 in FIG. It may be.

FIG. 79 shows the configuration of the client terminal 102 and the structured document editing device 310 in this case. In addition,
55 are given the same reference numerals, and different parts will be described. That is, the client terminal 102
The structured document editing apparatus 301 includes a user tag registration unit 201, a search request input unit 202, a search result display processing unit 203, a document editing unit 204, and an extended document search request input unit 205.
Has a storage unit 206, an additional document extraction unit 207, a search request separation unit 208, an additional document search unit 209, an additional document storage unit 210, and a document synthesis unit 211.

Each client terminal 102 has only a functional unit for inputting and displaying data, and the structured document editing apparatus 301 has a functional unit that can be shared by a plurality of users. It processes the query (normal query, extended query) sent from the server 102, processes a user tag, and processes a search result from the structured document management system.

With such a configuration, the user tag registration unit 201 and the search request input unit 20 of the client terminal 102
2. Document editing unit 204, extended document search request input unit 205
When a user tag is registered or a search request is made by using the structured document editing apparatus 301, the user tag is always sent.

In the configuration shown in FIG. 55, the user tag storage unit 206 and the additional document storage unit 210 need only store a user tag of only one user and an additional document. However, the structured document editing device 30 shown in FIG.
Since 1 is shared by a plurality of users, the user tag storage unit 206 and the additional document storage unit 210 always store user tags and additional documents of a plurality of users. Further, it is necessary to extract a user ID for identifying each user from various command messages from the client terminal 102 or the like, and then access the user tag storage unit 206 and the additional document storage unit 210.

The processing operations of the respective functional units of the structured document editing apparatus 301 are the same as those described above.

As described above, according to the above embodiment, the structure of the structured document management system 100 and the WWW server 101 need not be changed at all, and no operation is required for the structured document database. Not
It is possible to easily edit (process) a structured document on a structured document database for which rewriting is not permitted and search for a structured document including the edited result.

[0381] Even though no operation was performed on the structured document database, the user edited the structured document stored in the structured document database as if it were directly processed. The structured document can be searched and displayed as it is.

Unlike adding a simple memo to a structured document, the structured document can be edited in the form of adding a new component to the structured document, so that various types of information used for personal use purposes can be edited. (For example, urgency in evaluation, daily report (of matter processing), important person in personnel data, etc.) or within a user group consisting of multiple specific users, but keep it secret to other users By writing desired information using a user tag, only users within a limited range using publicly available information (structured documents stored in a structured document database) (personal use) Can be easily created (including extended documents).

[0383] Further, using a user tag, information that can be made publicly available and information that can be made open only to users within a limited range can be mixed in one structured document.

In the above embodiment, it is assumed that a document ID is given to all structured documents stored in the structured document database, and an additional document is used by using this document ID. The association is made with the structured document at the addition destination. However, the invention is not limited to this case, and the association can be made using a pointer.

In this case, it is not necessary for each structured document to have a document ID (that is, each structured document has “Document I
D "tag is not present). For example, for each structured document (in which an editing operation for adding a new component is performed), a table in which two types of pointers corresponding to the user ID of the editing operation of the structured document are registered is provided. deep. This table may be stored in the additional document storage unit 210, for example. As one pointer value, for example, the structured document path of the structured document is stored, and as the other pointer value, a pointer value to the storage area of the additional document stored in the additional document storage unit 210 is stored. Good.

The method of the present invention described in the embodiment of the present invention can be implemented as a program that can be executed by a computer, such as a magnetic disk (floppy (registered trademark) disk, hard disk, etc.), an optical disk (C
D-ROMs, DVDs, etc.) and storage media such as semiconductor memories for distribution.

[0387] The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and can be variously modified at the stage of implementation without departing from the scope of the invention. Furthermore, the above embodiments include inventions at various stages, and various inventions can be extracted by appropriate combinations of a plurality of disclosed configuration requirements. For example, even if some components are deleted from all the components shown in the embodiments, (at least one of) the problems described in the column of the problem to be solved by the invention can be solved, and the effect of the invention can be solved. If at least one of the effects described in (1) is obtained, a configuration from which this component is deleted can be extracted as an invention.

[0388]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Rewriting is permitted without changing the configuration of the side that provides the structured document (for example, the structured document management system and the WWW server) without performing any operation on the structured document database. Editing (processing) to structured documents on a structured document database without
A structured document including the edited result can be easily searched.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a structured document management system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing one use form of the structured document management system shown in FIG. 1, showing a case where the structured document management system is operating on the back end of WWW.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a structured document described in XML.

FIG. 4 is a diagram schematically showing a document structure of the structured document of FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining the function of the additional command, and shows a case where the additional command is executed in an initial state of the structured document database.

FIG. 6 is a view showing a processing result when an acquisition command is executed on the structured document database in the state shown in FIG. 5B;

FIG. 7 illustrates a case where a document object tree of one “patent” information is added by executing an addition command to the structured document database in the state illustrated in FIG. 5B.

FIG. 8 shows a case where an add command is executed to add a document object tree of three pieces of “patent” information to the structured document database in the state shown in FIG. 5B.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a storage example of an element name occurrence index.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a storage example of a data occurrence index.

FIG. 11 is a view showing an execution result when an acquisition command for extracting three pieces of “patent” information is executed on the structured document database in the state shown in FIG. 8;

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing an example of a schema that defines the document structure of an XML document.

13 is a diagram illustrating a case where a schema storage command is executed in the structured document database in the state illustrated in FIG. 8 to additionally store (set) the schema illustrated in FIG. 12;

FIG. 14 is a view showing a document object tree in which a schema is set and an attribute value indicating that the schema exists is set.

FIG. 15 is a diagram conceptually showing a state in which an attribute value indicating that a schema exists is stored in each object file.

FIG. 16 is a diagram showing an example in which a concept hierarchy used in a search is represented by a structured document as needed.

FIG. 17 is a diagram showing an example in which a concept hierarchy used in a search is represented by a structured document as needed.

FIG. 18 is a diagram showing a case where an addition command is executed on the structured document database in the state shown in FIG. 8 to add a document object tree of “concept” information shown in FIGS. 16 and 17;

19 is a diagram showing a case where an addition command is executed on the structured document database in the state shown in FIG. 8 to add a document object tree of “concept” information shown in FIGS. 16 and 17;

FIG. 20 is a flowchart for explaining a document storage processing operation of the structured document management system of FIG. 1;

FIG. 21 is a flowchart for explaining the processing of step S9 in FIG. 20 (processing by the composite document creating unit);

FIG. 22 shows a result of converting a document object tree of a synthesized document obtained by inserting a document object tree of a document storing a parameter in an additional command into a document object tree obtained from a structured document database into an XML document. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a composite document stored in a temporary file A.

FIG. 23 is a view showing an example of a schema document stored in a temporary file B and acquired from a structured document database.

FIG. 24 is a diagram showing another example of the composite document stored in the temporary file A.

FIG. 25 is a view showing an example of a schema document stored in a temporary file B and acquired from a structured document database.

FIG. 26 is a flowchart for explaining a document acquisition processing operation of the structured document management system of FIG. 1;

FIG. 27 is a flowchart for explaining a document deletion processing operation of the structured document management system of FIG. 1;

FIG. 28 is a flowchart for explaining the processing of step S46 in FIG. 27 (processing by the synthetic document creation unit (for a delete command));

FIG. 29 is a view showing still another example of the composite document stored in the temporary file A, which is an example of the composite document created when the delete command is executed.

FIG. 30 is a diagram showing an example of a schema document stored in a temporary file B and acquired from a structured document database.

FIG. 31 is a view showing a display example of a screen as a user interface.

FIG. 32 is a diagram showing a display example of a screen as a user interface for storing / deleting a document.

FIG. 33 is a view showing a display example of a screen as a user interface for storing / deleting a document.

FIG. 34 is a view showing a display example of a screen as a user interface for storing / deleting a document.

FIG. 35 is a view showing a display example of a display example of a message returned to the client terminal when an error occurs in the validity check.

FIG. 36 is a diagram illustrating a display example of a screen as a user interface for storing / deleting a document, and illustrating a document acquisition operation.

FIG. 37 is a diagram illustrating a display example of a screen as a user interface for setting a schema, and illustrating a schema setting operation.

FIG. 38 illustrates a display example of a screen as a user interface for acquiring a schema, and illustrates a display example of an acquired schema.

FIG. 39 is a view showing an example of a query (XML document).

FIG. 40 is a diagram showing an example of a simple search query (XML document).

FIG. 41 is a diagram showing a search result (XML document) using the simple search query of FIG. 40;

FIG. 42 is a view showing an example of a query (XML document) for concept search.

FIG. 43 is a flowchart for explaining a document search processing operation of the structured document management system of FIG. 1;

FIG. 44 is a view showing a display example of a screen as a user interface for performing a document search.

FIG. 45 is an exemplary view showing a query created based on information input from the screen shown in FIG. 44;

FIG. 46 is a view showing a storage example of the query shown in FIG. 42 in the structured document database.

FIG. 47 is a display example of a screen as a user interface for performing a document search, and is a diagram for explaining a schema search processing operation.

FIG. 48 is a diagram showing an example of a schema search query.

FIG. 49 is a diagram showing an example of a query for searching for a query.

FIG. 50 is a diagram showing an example of a structured document database in a patent search.

FIG. 51 is a view showing a display example of an input screen for concept search.

FIG. 52 is a view showing a query corresponding to input information on the input screen shown in FIG. 51;

FIG. 53 is a view showing an XML document as a search result corresponding to the query shown in FIG. 52;

FIG. 54 is a diagram showing an example of a patent map.

FIG. 55 is a configuration example of a client terminal according to the second embodiment, in which a structured document can be edited (processed) without performing any operation on the structured document database;
FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a client terminal having a structured document editing function that enables a document search including the edited result.

FIG. 56 is a diagram showing an example of a structured document database.

FIG. 57 is an example of a structured document showing “patent” information.

FIG. 58 is a view showing a display example of a user tag registration screen.

FIG. 59 is a view showing a storage example of a user tag in a user tag storage unit.

FIG. 60 is a view showing a display example of a search screen.

FIG. 61 is a view showing a display example of a search result list screen.

FIG. 62 is a view showing a display example of a search result browsing screen.

FIG. 63 is a view showing a display example of a document editing screen.

FIG. 64 is a view showing a display example of a list box displayed when a user tag and its value are specified as search conditions.

FIG. 65 is a diagram showing an example of an additional document.

FIG. 66 is a view showing a data structure for storing an additional document in an additional document storage unit.

FIG. 67 is a view showing a display example of an extended document search screen.

FIG. 68 is a diagram showing an example of an extended query.

FIG. 69 is a view showing a normal query generated from the extended query of FIG. 68;

FIG. 70 is a view showing an example of an additional document query template stored in the search request separating unit.

FIG. 71 is a view showing another example of a template of an additional document query stored in the search request separating unit.

FIG. 72 is a diagram showing a query for an additional document generated from the extended query of FIG. 68.

FIG. 73 is a view showing an example of an extended document.

FIG. 74 is a view showing a display example of a search result list screen.

FIG. 75 is a display example of a search result browsing screen, showing a display example of an extended document.

FIG. 76 is a flowchart for explaining the document editing processing operation;

FIG. 77 is a flowchart for describing an extended document search processing operation.

FIG. 78 is a view for explaining the positioning of the structured document editing device.

FIG. 79 is a view showing a configuration example of a client terminal and a structured document editing device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Request control part 2 ... Access request processing part 3 ... Search request processing part 4 ... Data access part 5 ... Document storage part 6 ... Index storage part 11 ... Reception request part 12 ... Result processing part 21 ... Document storage part 22 ... Document Acquisition unit 23 Document deletion unit 41 Document object tree storage unit 42 Document object tree deletion unit 43 Document object tree acquisition unit 44 Document character string acquisition unit 45 Document object tree acquisition unit from path 46 Document parser 47 Synthetic document creation unit 48 Index update unit 100 Structured document management system 101 WWW server 102 Client terminal 103 WWW browser 201 User tag registration unit 202 Search request input unit 203 Search result display processing unit 204 Document Editing unit 205: Extended document search request input unit 206: User Storage unit 207 additional document extraction unit 208 search request separation unit 209 additional document search unit 210 additional document storage unit 211 document synthesis unit 301 structured document editing device

Continuing from the front page (72) Inventor Takuya Kanawa 1 Toshiba R & D Center, Komukai, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture (72) Inventor Hiroshi Niina 1 Toshiba-cho, Komukai-shi, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa Address Toshiba R & D Center (72) Inventor Masakazu Hattori 1 Tokoba R & D Center, Komukai Toshiba-cho, Yuki-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa F-term (Reference) 5B075 ND35 NK43 NR03 NR03 NR20

Claims (10)

[Claims] 1. A new component to be added to a structured document including a plurality of components stored in a structured document database having a hierarchical logical structure is created, and the created new configuration is created. Storing the element in association with the structured document; and when the new component is associated with the structured document retrieved from the structured document database, the new configuration is added to the structured document. A structured document editing method characterized by adding and displaying elements. 2. A new component to be added to a structured document including a plurality of components stored in a structured document database having a hierarchical logical structure is created, and the created new configuration is created. A first element for correlating an element with the structured document and storing the element in a storage unit based on a search request that includes the element and its value in a search condition; And a second search request for searching for a structured document stored in the structured document database, and a structure searched from the structured document database based on the second search request When a new component retrieved based on the first retrieval request is associated with the structured document, the new component is added to the structured document and displayed. Document Method. 3. A new component to be added to a structured document including a plurality of components stored in a structured document database having a hierarchical logical structure is created, and the created new configuration is created. Means for storing an element in association with the structured document; and when the new component is associated with the structured document retrieved from the structured document database, the new A structured document editing apparatus, comprising: means for adding and displaying various components. 4. A creating means for creating a new component to be added to a structured document composed of a plurality of components stored in a structured document database having a hierarchical logical structure; Means for storing the structural elements in association with the structured document to which the new structural elements are added; and storing in the storage means based on a search request including the structural elements and their values in a search condition. First generation means for generating a first search request for searching for a new constituent element and a second search request for searching for a structured document stored in the structured document database; When a new component searched based on the first search request is associated with a structured document searched from the structured document database based on the second search request, the structured document is A second generation unit that adds the new component to the display unit to create a structured document for display; and a display unit that displays the generated structured document for display. Structured document editing device. 5. A storage for storing a new component to be added to a structured document including a plurality of components stored in a structured document database having a hierarchical logical structure in association with the structured document. Means, when a search request including the component and its value in a search condition is received, a first search request for searching for a new component stored in the storage unit based on the search request; A second search request for searching for a structured document stored in the structured document database;
Generating means, and when a new component searched based on the first search request is associated with a structured document searched from the structured document database based on the second search request, And a second generation unit for adding the new component to the structured document to generate a structured document for display. A structured document editing apparatus, comprising: 6. A new component to be added to a structured document composed of a plurality of components stored in a structured document database having a hierarchical logical structure and associated with the structured document in a storage means. A first search request for searching for a new component stored in the storage unit based on the search request when storing and receiving a search request including the component and its value in a search condition; And generating a second search request for searching for a structured document stored in the structured document database, and adding the second search request to the structured document searched from the structured document database based on the second search request. When a new component found based on the first search request is associated with the structured document, the structured document editing apparatus adds the new component to the structured document to generate a structured document for display. When A terminal device for communicating with each other to edit and search a structured document stored in the structured document database, and a new configuration for adding to the structured document stored in the structured document database Creating means for creating an element; registering means for registering the new component created by the creating means in the storage means of the structured document editing device; and Transmitting means for transmitting the search request including the value in the search condition; and receiving and displaying the structured document for display transmitted from the structured document editing apparatus as a search result based on the search request. A terminal device, comprising: display means. 7. A new component to be added to a structured document including a plurality of components stored in a structured document database having a hierarchical logical structure is created, and the created new configuration is created. Processing for storing an element in the storage unit in association with the structured document; and when the new component is associated with the structured document retrieved from the structured document database, the A process for adding the new component to the document and displaying the document, and a program for causing a computer to execute the process. 8. A process for creating a new component to be added to a structured document composed of a plurality of components stored in a structured document database having a hierarchical logical structure; and Processing for storing a new component in the storage unit in association with the structured document to which the new component is added; and a search request including the component and its value in a search condition. A first search request for searching for a new component stored in the storage unit and a second search request for searching for a structured document stored in the structured document database; Processing, and when a new component searched based on the first search request is associated with a structured document searched from the structured document database based on the second search request. Adding the new component to the structured document,
A program for causing a computer to execute: a process for creating a structured document for display; and a process for displaying the generated structured document for display. 9. A new component to be added to a structured document composed of a plurality of components stored in a structured document database having a hierarchical logical structure is associated with the structured document and stored in the storage means. A process for storing, and a first request for searching for a new component stored in the storage means based on the search request when a search request including the component and its value in a search condition is received. Processing for generating a search request and a second search request for searching a structured document stored in the structured document database; and searching from the structured document database based on the second search request When the new structured element searched based on the first search request is associated with the structured document obtained, the new structured element is added to the structured document and a structured sentence for display is added. Program for executing a processing for generating, to the computer. 10. A new component to be added to a structured document composed of a plurality of components stored in a structured document database having a hierarchical logical structure and associated with the structured document in a storage means. A first search request for searching for a new component stored in the storage unit based on the search request when storing and receiving a search request including the component and its value in a search condition; And generating a second search request for searching for a structured document stored in the structured document database, and adding the second search request to the structured document searched from the structured document database based on the second search request. When a new component found based on the first search request is associated with the structured document, the structured document editing apparatus adds the new component to the structured document to generate a structured document for display. And a program for causing a computer to execute a process for editing and searching for a structured document stored in the structured document database, the program being stored in the structured document database. A process for creating a new component to be added to the structured document that is present; a process for registering the created new component in the storage unit of the structured document editing apparatus; A process for transmitting the search request including the component and its value in a search condition to the document editing device; and a display result transmitted from the structured document editing device as a search result based on the search request. A process for receiving and displaying the structured document of, and a program for causing a computer to execute.