JPH03222548A - Medium conversion system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve the distribution performance of an electronic mail by registering in advance a medium form of a mail addressed to its own mail box, referencing the registration at the arrival of a mail and converting the mail automatically and storing the result in a mail box. CONSTITUTION:A medium form (document form) of a mail address to its own mail box 6 is registered in advance in a main box attribute management table 5 and the system references the registration in the arrival of a mail to convert the form automatically and the result is stored in the mail box 6. Then a user having an access right of the mail box 6 accesses the box for the processing. Thus, a mail is exchanged between terminal equipments 8 to attain processing, especially decentralizing processing easily without consciousness of the medium kind thereby improving the distribution performance of the electronic mail.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Summary] Regarding a media conversion method that automatically converts the media format of mail in an electronic mail system, the media format of mail addressed to one's own mailbox is registered in advance, and the system automatically converts the media format when the mail arrives. With the aim of improving the circulation of e-mail by referring to this registration and automatically converting it and storing it in the mailbox, the media format conversion information of incoming mail is associated with the mailbox and stored in the mailbox in advance. It is equipped with a mailbox attribute management table to be registered and a mailbox to store incoming mail, and when it is determined that the media format of the received mail needs to be converted by referring to the above mailbox attribute management table, the media The conversion is performed and stored in the corresponding mailbox, and the configuration is configured so that a user who has access rights to this mailbox can access and process it.

C. Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a media conversion method for automatically converting the media format of mail in an electronic mail system. When performing distributed processing by linking hosts and workstations, it is desirable to connect various workstations using an e-mail system, automatically convert media formats, and exchange messages without users being aware of it. ing.

[Prior Art and Problems to be Solved by the Invention] Conventionally, there have been various document formats depending on workstations, personal computers, and applications running thereon. For example, there are documents in various formats, such as documents created with DO3 and documents created with 0ASYS. These documents cannot be exchanged as they are, which is a problem that hinders the circulation of documents. If the format of the document in the email received by the email system is different from the format of the document on your device, you can start the conversion program to convert the document format, convert it, and then process it on your device. There are problems in that a large amount of time is spent receiving emails, and the operation is troublesome.

The present invention registers in advance the media format of emails addressed to one's own mailbox, and when an email arrives, the system refers to this registration and automatically converts the format and stores it in the mailbox, thereby improving the circulation of email. The aim is to improve.

[Means to solve problems]

Means for solving the problem will be explained with reference to FIG.

In FIG. 1, a mailbox attribute management table 5 is a table in which conversion information of the media format of an incoming mail is registered in advance in association with a mail pocket 6.

The mailbox 6 is a box (file) that stores incoming mail.

[Effect]

As shown in FIG. 1, the present invention refers to the mailbox attribute management table 5 regarding the media format of an incoming mail, and when it is determined that the media format needs to be converted, the media conversion is performed and the corresponding mailbox is Store it in
A user who has access rights to this mailbox 6 accesses and processes it.

Therefore, the media format (document format) of the email addressed to the own mailbox 6 is set in the mailbox attribute management table 5.
, and when an email arrives, the system refers to this registration and automatically converts it to mailbox 6.
By storing e-mails in

〔Example〕

Next, the configuration and operation of one embodiment of the present invention will be explained in detail using FIGS. 1 and 2.

In FIG. 1, an e-mail system 1 is a system for receiving and passing e-mails (electronic slips, messages) between terminals.

The mail transfer control unit 2 sends and receives mail via a line, and when a mail arrives, refers to the routing table 4 to determine which mailbox 6 to send the mail to, and sends and receives mail via the line. It is used to give instructions, etc.

The mail delivery control unit 3 stores (delivers) mail to a designated mailbox 6.

At this time, when the media conversion unit 3-1 refers to the mailbox attribute management table 5 and determines that the media type of the email needs to be converted, after performing the media conversion, the email is transferred to the corresponding mailbox 6. Store in.

The routing table 4 is a table in which the correspondence between addresses and mailbox IDs is registered in advance, and is used to store incoming mail in the destination mailbox 6.

The mailbox attribute management table 5 is a table in which the correspondence between mailbox IDs and attributes (attributes related to the relationship between input media type and output media type when media conversion is required) is registered in advance, and the correspondence between mailbox IDs and attributes (attributes related to the relationship between input media type and output media type when media conversion is required) is registered in advance. This is to determine whether or not it is necessary to convert the media type of the output media, and to know the output media type.

The mailbox 6 is a box (file) that stores mail.

The operations management section 7 performs various operations management such as registering in advance in the routing table 4 and mailbox notification management table 5 as shown in the figure.

The terminal 8 is a terminal such as a workstation or a personal computer through which users exchange e-mails and perform various processes in a distributed manner. These terminals 8 process documents in various formats such as DO3 format, ASYS format, ASCII format, and EBCDIC format. These document formats can be converted by registering them in the attribute column of the mailbox attribute management table 5 in advance.
When a mail in any format is received, it is automatically converted into a document in the registered format by the media conversion unit 3-1 and stored.

Next, according to the order shown in Flowchart 1 in Figure 2, the first
The operation of the diagram configuration will be explained in detail.

In FIG. 2, ■ indicates that a mail arrives. This means that the mail arrives at the mail transfer control section 2 in FIG. As shown on the left side, this mail consists of a destination, a media type (DO3 format, 0ASYS format, etc.), and a medium.

(2) determines the mailbox 10 by routing based on the address (destination). As shown on the right, this route is based on the destination of the email received in ■.
to determine the corresponding mailbox ID. For example, the mailbox ID "F6363°" of address Kawada' is determined.

(3) reads media attribute information from the mailbox attribute management table 5; For example, from the mailbox attribute management table 5 shown on the right, the mailbox ID "F636"
3" (7) Read the attribute "DO3-40ASYS". Here, the former DO5 is the input media type, the latter 0A
SYS is the output media type.

(2) determines whether or not the received mail has a media type. This determines whether or not the media type of the incoming mail matches the media type of the mailbox 6 read in step (3).

If YES (if it turns out that it is necessary to convert the media type), the media type specified in ■ (for example, D
Perform media conversion from O3 to 0ASY'S) and [phase]
I do. In the case of No, it is determined that there is no need to perform media conversion, so step (2) is performed without performing media conversion.

[Phase] stores the mail whose media has been converted by ■YES and [Phase], or the mail whose media has not been converted by ■No, in the mailbox corresponding to the destination.

■ In [phase], a user who has access rights to the mailbox in which the email is stored retrieves the email.

(2) displays the mail retrieved in (2) on the terminal 8 and processes it.

As described above, when the media type of an incoming email corresponds to the input media type of the conversion unit registered in advance in the mailbox attribute management table 5, it is automatically converted to the registered output media type and stored in the mailbox 6. According to
E-mails can be exchanged and processed between the terminals 8 without being aware of the media type, and in particular, distributed processing can be easily performed.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, the media format (document format) of mail addressed to one's own mailbox 6 is registered in advance in the mailbox attribute management table 5, and the system automatically registers the media format (document format) of mail addressed to one's mailbox 6 in advance. Since the configuration is adopted in which the registered information is automatically converted and stored in the mailbox 6, the circulation of electronic mail can be improved.

In particular, by connecting a large number of terminals 8 having different document formats to the e-mail system 1, it is possible to exchange mails between these terminals 8 without being aware of the document formats and to efficiently perform distributed processing.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the present invention. In the figure, l is an e-mail system, 2 is a mail transfer control unit, 3 is a mail delivery control unit, 3-1 is a media conversion unit, 4
is a routing table, 5 is a mailbox attribute management table, 6 is a mailbox, 7 is an operation management section, and 8 is a terminal.

Claims (1)

[Claims] In a media conversion method that automatically converts the media format of mail in an e-mail system, there is provided a mailbox attribute management table in which conversion information of the media format of an incoming mail is registered in advance in association with a mailbox (6). (
5) and a mailbox (6) for storing incoming mail, and when it is determined that the media format of the received mail needs to be converted by referring to the mailbox attribute management table (5) above. A media conversion method characterized in that the media is converted and stored in a corresponding mailbox (6), and a user who has access rights to this mailbox (6) accesses and processes it.