JP2538133B2 - Electronic file system access method - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for accessing an electronic file system including a file device for large-capacity data such as image information from an information processing terminal device such as a personal computer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, for example, as shown in FIG. 1, a large-capacity data file device 1 using a recording medium such as an optical disk or a magneto-optical disk, a scanner device 2, a printer device 3, a display device / file control device. An electronic file system 5 in which 4 and the like are connected by a LAN (local area network) or the like and an information processing terminal device 6 such as a personal computer are connected via a gateway device (protocol conversion device) 7, and the gateway device 7 and Information processing terminal device 6
In the connection 8 between the
The S-232C interface was commonly adopted. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 11, the gateway device 7 includes a control unit 9 for protocol conversion processing and other controls, and an RS-23 for the information processing terminal device 6 side.
2C interface unit 10, electronic file system 5
The electronic file interface unit 11 for the side is provided.

[0003]

However, RS-232
The C interface has a bus width of 1 bit for transmission data and reception data, and its transfer rate is usually 1920.
There is a problem that it takes a very long time to transfer large-capacity data such as image information between the electronic file system and the information processing terminal device because the limit is about 0 bps. Further, for that purpose, when browsing the image information accumulated in the file device in the electronic file system, the graphic display in the electronic file system (for example, the display device / file control device 4 in FIG. 1) is used. There was an inconvenience such as having to do it.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an electronic file capable of transferring large-capacity data such as image information at high speed between an electronic file system and an information processing terminal device. The purpose is to provide a method of accessing the system.

[0005]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention provides an ANSI (US) between a gateway device and an information processing terminal device interposed between an electronic file system and an information processing terminal device. Standards Association) X3.131
-SC, a high-performance general-purpose parallel interface for small-scale computer systems established as 1986
Connect with a bus (SCSI bus) that conforms to SI (Small Computer System Interfase), and use S in advance.
A command send command, a response receive command, a data send command, and a data receive command are defined as CSI vendor unique commands. Then, the information processing terminal device transmits an operation command of the electronic file system for accessing the electronic file system to the electronic file system via the gateway device using the command transmission command, The information of the response to the access is received via the gateway device using the response reception command using the response reception command, or the electronic file via the gateway device using the data reception command or the data transmission command. It has a configuration for receiving or transmitting data with the system.

[0006]

As described above, according to the present invention, the information processing terminal device uses the command transmission command defined as the SCSI vendor-unique command to pass the operation command of the electronic file system itself to the electronic file system to transfer the electronic file. If the system is accessed and the response information for this access is received by using a response reception command specified in advance, or in the case of an access involving the transfer of capacity data such as image information, a data reception command or data transmission specified in advance The electronic file system, which is a large-scale system, can be accessed by applying SCSI, which is an interface for a small-scale system, by the method of receiving or transmitting data to and from the electronic file system using a command. And
The data bus width of the SCSI bus is 8 bits, and RS-
Since the transfer rate can be significantly increased as compared with the 232C interface, a large amount of data such as image information can be transferred between the information processing terminal device and the electronic file system in a much shorter time than before. . In addition, the transmission frame
Command, response reception command, data transmission command,
Data reception command and command according to each role
Is set and the data transmission
Command, it is not necessary to output the data reception command
Therefore, communication can be performed efficiently.
It is.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below, but for convenience of explanation, the system configuration and reference numerals shown in FIG. 1 will be used as they are.

According to the present invention, the gateway device 7 is interposed between the information processing terminal device 6 and the electronic file system 5 as in the conventional case, but the gateway device 7 and the information processing terminal device 6 are S for connection 8 between
The CSI bus is used. As a result, in the gateway device 7, as shown in FIG. 2, the interface unit for the information processing terminal device 6 side is the SCSI interface unit 12
Is changed to.

According to the present invention, a command send command, a response receive command, a data send command, and a data receive command are specified as SCSI vendor unique commands used to access the electronic file system 5 from the information processing terminal device 6. To do. The command description block of this command is as shown in FIG. As operation codes, C0H to C corresponding to group 6
3H is used. Further, an operation command of the electronic file system is transmitted as a parameter of the command transmission command, and the format of this operation command is shown in FIG.

Further, according to the present invention, the information processing terminal device 6
As a protocol for accessing the electronic file system 5 from the following, the protocol shown in FIG. 3 (when not transferring large volume data such as image information) and the protocol shown in FIG. 4 (transfer of large volume data such as image information) are used. (When accompanied) and are specified. Both figures show the case of successful processing. In the protocol shown in FIG. 4, when data is transferred from the information processing terminal device 6 to the electronic file system 5, a data transmission command is used instead of the data reception command. Naturally, the control unit 9 in the gateway device 7 is partially modified to support such a protocol.

Next, the operation of accessing the electronic file system 5 from the information processing terminal device 6 will be described. First, a process of reading management information of a recording medium (hereinafter referred to as a disk) in the electronic file system 5 on the information processing terminal device side will be described. FIG. 7 is a sequence diagram of this processing. In the case of this processing, since a large amount of data such as image information is not transferred, only the protocol shown in FIG. 3 is used.

As an initiator, the information processing terminal device 6 sends a command transmission command to the gateway device 7 which is a target, and operates the electronic file system itself for instructing the mounting of the disk and the reading of the volume number etc. as its parameters. Command B
5 commands are sent. Control unit 9 of gateway device 7
When the command transmission command is received via the SCSI interface unit 12, the device determines that the parameter received subsequently is an operation command for the electronic file system 5, and determines this operation command via the electronic file interface unit 11. Send to. Further, the control unit 9 returns the SCSI status (status shown in FIG. 3) for the reception of the command transmission command and its parameters to the information processing terminal device 6 through the SCSI interface unit 12.

In the electronic file system 5, when the display device / file control device 4 receives the B5 command, the display device / file control device 4 executes the mounting of the disk on the file device 1, reads the information such as the volume number, and the like to the gateway device 7. Along with returning the status about it.

The information processing terminal device 6 displays G as the SCSI status for the issued command transmission command.
When the OOD status is returned, the response reception command is sent. The control unit 9 of the gateway device 7 uses the response information (volume number and other information and the electronic file system side status) transferred from the electronic file system 5 as parameters of the response command reception command in the DATA IN phase of SCSI. It returns to the information processing terminal device 6. When this transfer is completed normally, GOOD status (status on SCSI) is returned.

In this manner, the information such as the volume number and the status of the electronic file system 5 are read by the information processing terminal device 6 by the protocol shown in FIG. Then, by repeating the same protocol, necessary disk management information is sequentially read.

That is, in the example shown in FIG. 7, an operation command (H1 command) for reading the volume information of the designated volume, an operation command (H2 command) for reading the search information definition information of the designated file, and a designation Disk volume, operation command (H4 command) to read the usage status of files,
An operation command (H5 command) for reading the deleted document number is sent to the electronic file system 5 by a command transmission command, then a response reception command is transmitted, and the response information returned from the electronic file system 5 as an access result is the response reception command. Sequentially received as a parameter of. Finally, the information processing terminal device 6 operates the operation command (R
5 command) is transmitted to the electronic file system 5 by a command transmission command, and then a reception command is transmitted to receive response information from the electronic file system 5.

Next, as an example in which the protocol of FIG. 3 and the protocol of FIG. 4 are used, a process of reading image information of a document from the electronic file system 5 by the information processing terminal device 6 will be described. FIG. 8 is a sequence diagram of this processing.

The information processing terminal device 6 sends a B5 command to the electronic file system 5 by a command send command, and then sends a response receive command to mount the disk and read the volume number and the like. This follows the protocol of FIG.

When the information processing terminal device 6 confirms that the SCSI status is the GOOD status and that the above-mentioned operation has been normally performed from the received response information, the document open command (O1 command) is issued. To send. In the document file system 5, the display device / file control device 4 reads the reproduction information of the designated document, returns the number of pages and the attribute information of each page to the gateway device 7, and also returns the status information. The information processing terminal device 6 reads these pieces of information by the response reception command. That is, the processing at this stage is performed by the protocol shown in FIG.

The status returned from the electronic file system is normal, and the SCSI from the gateway device 7
When the upper status is the GOOD status, the information processing terminal device 6 causes the page information reading command (I1
Command) to the electronic file system 5 by a command transmission command. For this, GOOD on SCSI
When the status is returned, the information processing terminal device 6 immediately sends a data reception command. Electronic file system 5
When the I1 command is given, reads out the image information for one page of the document designated by the parameter of the command, transfers the image information to the gateway device 7, and then returns the status. When the control unit 9 of the gateway device 7 receives the data reception command, the image information transferred from the electronic file system 5 is protocol-converted and transferred to the information processing terminal device 6 through the SCSI interface unit 12. When this transfer is completed, the SCSI status is returned. When the information processing terminal device 6 is returned with the GOOD status, it issues a response reception command, while the gateway device 7 causes the electronic file system 5
Status as response information, then SC
Returns the status on SI.

As described above, the reading of the image information is executed page by page according to the protocol of FIG. SCS
When the GOOD status on I is returned and the status of the electronic file system 5 is normal, and if there are remaining pages, the information processing terminal device 6 reads the image information one after another according to the protocol of FIG. Since data transfer is performed using a parallel interface SCSI bus, a large amount of image information can be transferred in a short time.

When the reading is completed up to the last page or the required page, the information processing terminal device 6 will
The protocol is switched to the protocol, and a document close command (O2 command) is sent to the electronic file system 5 by a command transmission command to cause the electronic file system 5 to execute the closing process of the document that has been read, and the result is a response reception command. Read by.

If there is another document to be read, the processes from document open to document close are repeated. When the process of transferring the image information of all the necessary documents is completed, the information processing terminal device sends a disc dismount command (R5 command) to the electronic file system 5 by a command transmission command to dismount the disc,
The result is read by the response reception command.

It is also possible to access the electronic file system 5 from the information processing terminal device 6 and output the image information of the document to the printer device 6 in the electronic file system. An example of the sequence of this processing is shown in FIG. The operation commands used here will be briefly described. The O3 command is a printer open command for monopolizing a designated printer, the I5 command is a page print command for printing a page of a designated document, and the O4 command is a printer close command for canceling allocation of the designated printer. .

FIG. 10 is a conceptual diagram of commands in the present invention. The application software on the information processing terminal device side issues an operation command for accessing the electronic file system, which is passed to the electronic file system side via the gateway device by a SCSI command (vendor unique command). The application software side can operate the electronic file system without being aware of the SCSI intervention, and the electronic file system does not need to be aware of the SCSI intervention.

[0026]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, the parallel interface between the gateway device and the information processing terminal device interposed between the electronic file system and the information processing terminal device is a SCSI interface. Connect by bus and parameterize operation commands of electronic file system as SCSI vendor unique command in advance.
Commands that can be set in the computer, electronic file system
The information corresponding to the command transmission command from the system
Settable response reception command, send and receive image information
Data transmission command to execute and data reception command
The command is specified, the operation command for accessing the electronic file system is transmitted to the electronic file system via the gateway device using the command transmission command, and the access result is received via the gateway device using the response reception command. Alternatively, since the data transfer command and the data transmission command are used to transfer data to and from the electronic file system via the gateway device , for example, an electronic file is accessed.
When searching, the number of hits and the corresponding images are
It exists as data, but when the number of hits is 0, the
Since there is no data,
When there is no data that does not need to use the receive command
It is something that can react quickly. Also,
Large amount of data such as image data when exchanging data
Handle data and response data for commands separately
And when you don't have large amounts of data,
It can respond. In addition, logging data of complicated systems such as electronic file system can be
Although there is a problem that a complicated definition is required when directly rewriting to the SI protocol, the present invention uses the R specified by SCSI to access or operate the electronic file system.
Since such a problem can be avoided because the operation command / response protocol of the electronic file system can be used instead of the low-order data transfer protocol such as EAD or WRITE.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram showing an example of a system to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram of a gateway device used in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a sequence diagram showing a protocol applied to processing that does not involve data transfer in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a sequence diagram showing a protocol applied to a process involving data transfer in one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of SCSI commands.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of operation commands.

FIG. 7 is a sequence diagram showing an example of disk management information reading processing.

FIG. 8 is a sequence diagram showing an example of reading processing of document image information.

FIG. 9 is a sequence diagram showing an example of processing for causing a printer in the electronic file system to output image information of a document.

FIG. 10 is a conceptual diagram of commands in the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a schematic configuration diagram of a conventional gateway device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 File Device 2 Scanner Device 3 Printer Device 4 Display Device / File Control Device 5 Electronic File System 6 Information Processing Terminal Device 7 Gateway Device 9 Control Unit 11 Electronic File Interface Unit 12 SCSI Interface Unit

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A gateway device interposed between an electronic file system including a file device for large-capacity data such as image information and an information processing terminal device for protocol conversion, and the information processing terminal device by a SCSI bus. As soon as the connection is established, the operation command of the electronic file system is set as a SCSI vendor unique command in advance.
Command transmission command that can be set to the meter, electronic file
Information corresponding to the command transmission command
Response reception command that can set information, transmission and reception of image information
Data transmission command and data reception
The communication command is specified, and it is compatible with the electronic file system.
Command to send and receive data.
Data transmission command or data reception after sending
By sending commands via the gateway device,
Send and receive data to and from the child file system,
After sending and receiving data,
There is no data to send and receive via the gateway device.
Send command when command is received
Characterized by sending commands via a gateway device
How to access the electronic file system.