JPH04281558A - Document retrieving device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To reduce the number of times of the scroll operation of a screen by displaying the skeleton structure of a simplified sentence at the time of displaying parts including designated key words in a text, as a list. CONSTITUTION:A character string including the key words is extracted from text data, a text analyzing processing such as a syntax analysis is operated to this character string, and the simplified sentence constituted of words and phrases constituting the skeleton structure of the text is displayed as the element of the list of candidate documents. Then, a document selecting part 5h allows a user to select one of document content expressions which are already displayed as a list by candidate document list display part 5g. The, a document display part 5i reads out document data corresponding to the document content expression selected by the document selecting part 5h from a candidate document storing buffer 51, and displays the text and a chart or the like on the display screen of a display device.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

[Purpose of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a document retrieval device capable of efficiently searching a document database for a document desired by a user.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art Document retrieval systems using large computers or workstations have been put into practical use.

[0003] When searching for a document using such a document search device, the user first inputs a keyword. Thereafter, the device searches the database for documents that include the input keyword in the text or in the header as a search key, and provides the search results to the user.

[0004] By the way, if a plurality of documents satisfying the conditions are found, the user must further select the desired one from among them. Therefore, the device side enumerates and displays a document content list such as the title of each document found and the document information or abstract attached to each document along with the document number, and the user can refer to the document content added here. The user determines whether each document is suitable for the purpose before viewing the document itself.

[0005]

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] As mentioned above, in conventional search devices, when there are multiple candidate documents, the user selects the desired one by referring to a document content list provided by the device. However, there are few cases in which the document contents list accurately represents the contents of the document, and even if the description the user wants exists in the main text, it is not included in the title or header of the document. There were also cases that were not represented in the information. In particular, when the number of candidate documents increases, the burden on the user required to search for a target document is large. Also, if the contents of each document are expressed in detail in the document contents list, the display amount of the document contents list itself will become large and will not fit in the display area of the display screen.
There were also operational problems, such as the user having to scroll the screen frequently.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide a document retrieval device that can accurately represent the contents of each document in a document contents list with a minimum amount of description. .

[Configuration of the invention]

[0008]

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a document data storage means for storing document data consisting of text data, diagram data, etc. A document search device comprising: a keyword input means for inputting a keyword to search for document data; and a keyword search means for searching the document data storage means for a document containing the keyword input from the keyword input means; A storage means for storing candidate sentences containing the keywords extracted by the keyword search means for each of the document data, and a simplification including the keywords by performing sentence analysis processing on the candidate sentences stored in the storage means. candidate document list display means for displaying the selected sentences as elements of a candidate document list; document selection means for specifying one of the elements in the document list displayed by the candidate document list display means;
The present invention is characterized by comprising a document display means for displaying the contents of document data corresponding to the document specified by the document selection means.

[0009]

[Operation] Since the present invention is configured as described above, when selecting a target document data from among a plurality of candidate document data obtained by using keywords, the keyword can be used as a text as an element of the candidate document list. By displaying keywords in association with surrounding words, the appearance of the keyword in the document is clearly expressed, and it is possible to accurately judge whether the content of the entire document matches the purpose.

[0010]Furthermore, by performing sentence analysis processing on the sentences containing keywords in the candidate document data, and displaying short sentences containing the keywords as elements of the candidate document list, on the display screen of the candidate document list. occupies a smaller area.

[0011]

Embodiments Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a document search device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in the figure, the document search device includes an input device 1, a display device 2, a document data storage device 3, a control device 4, and a memory 5.

The input device 1 is a device for inputting character codes, control commands, position information, etc., and is composed of, for example, a keyboard 1a, a mouse 1b, and devices for controlling these.

[0015] The display device 2 displays prompt messages for prompting the user to input, input character strings, document data obtained after searching, and the like. It consists of a display that displays stored bit information as a dot string.

The document data storage device 3 is for storing each document data, and is composed of, for example, a hard disk device. The storage format of document data in this document storage device 3 is shown in FIG. One piece of document data consists of a text data section 3a containing only text information in the document and a non-text data section 3b containing image data, format information, etc. The document data storage device 3 stores document data in this format. Multiple items are stored. That is, the plurality of document data 31, 32,..., 3n are text data portions 31a, 32a,..., 3n, respectively.
The data is stored in the document data storage device 3 in a format consisting of a and non-text data portions 31b, 32b, . . . , 3nb.

The control device 4 is composed of, for example, a CPU, and is connected to the input device 1 , display device 2 , document data storage device 3 , and memory 5 via a bus, and controls each device and transfers data between the devices. It performs control and processing such as transfer of data.

The memory 5 is, for example, a dynamic RAM.
As shown in FIG. 3, it consists of a program section 5a that stores programs for the control device 4 to execute various controls and processes, and a buffer section 5b that buffers data necessary for processing. . Further, the program section 5a is divided into the following modules: a main processing section 5c, an initialization section 5d, a keyword input section 5e, a keyword search section 5f, a candidate document list display section 5g, a document selection section 5h, and a document display section 5i. Further, the data buffer section 5b is
It is composed of a keyword storage buffer 5j, a keyword search buffer 5k, a candidate document storage buffer 5l, a candidate document number storage buffer 5m, a character string storage buffer 5n, a syntax tree storage buffer 5p, and a sentence skeleton storage buffer 5q. The functions of each part of the program section 5a and buffer section 5b will be explained below.

The main processing section 5c is in charge of controlling the processing of the entire device, and is responsible for program branching and initialization section 5.
In addition, the initialization unit 5d performs the initialization of each hardware device and initializes the contents of each buffer constituting the data buffer unit 5b.

[0020] The keyword input unit 5e allows the user to input a character string that is a key keyword during a search via the keyboard 1a of the input device 1, and stores this in the keyword storage buffer 5j.

The keyword search section 5f reads the document data stored in the document data storage device 3 in the order in which they are stored, stores it in the keyword search buffer 5k, and searches the character strings stored in the keyword storage buffer 5i. The document data containing the keyword search buffer 5k is searched for. A plurality of pieces of document data obtained as a result of this search are stored as candidate document data in the candidate document storage buffer 5l.

The candidate document list display section 5g displays, on the display screen of the display device 2, expressions representing the contents of each candidate document data stored in the candidate document storage buffer 5l (hereinafter referred to as document content expressions). do. That is, the document content expressions are displayed as an enumeration on the display screen as elements of the candidate document list.

The document selection section 5h allows the user to select one of the document content expressions already listed and displayed by the candidate document list display section 5g.

The document display section 5i reads document data corresponding to the document content representation selected by the document selection section 5h from the candidate document storage buffer 5l, and displays text, charts, etc. on the display screen of the display device 2.

The candidate document number storage buffer 5m is a buffer that stores the number of document data included in the candidate document storage buffer 5l.

Further, the character string storage buffer 5n is a buffer for storing character strings containing keywords in units of sentences, and the syntax tree storage buffer 5p is a buffer for storing the results of syntactic analysis, which is one of the text analysis processes. The skeleton data storage buffer 5q is a buffer that stores character strings representing the skeleton of a sentence.

Next, specific processing operations of the document retrieval apparatus having the above configuration will be explained with reference to a flowchart showing the flow of processing in FIG.

The entire process is controlled by the main processing section 5c, which first starts up the initialization section 5d. The activated initialization unit 5d initializes the keyword storage buffer 5j, keyword search buffer 5k, and candidate document storage buffer 5l of the buffer unit 5b, clears the contents of the candidate document number storage buffer 5m, and input device 1 and display device 2. Perform initial settings, etc. Furthermore, various icons necessary for command input are displayed. (Step S1).

Next, the main processing section 5c activates the keyword input section 5e. Activated keyword input section 5e
Generally, the user inputs a plurality of keywords each consisting of a code string via the keyboard 1a of the input device 1. Processing such as kana-kanji conversion is performed on the input code string, and the obtained character string is stored in the keyword storage buffer 5j. After the keyword is input and stored in the keyword storage buffer 5j, the process moves to step S3. (Step S2).

[0030] In step S3, the keyword search section 5f
is started. The activated keyword search section 5f is
The document data stored in the document data storage device 3 is read out in the order in which it is stored, for example, the document data 31 is read out first and stored in the keyword search buffer 5k. Further, the keyword search section 5f refers to the text data section 31a of the document data 31 stored in the keyword search buffer 5k, and searches the text data section 31a for any one of the plurality of keywords stored in the keyword storage buffer 5j. Check to see if it contains the same string as . If it is included, the entire document data 31 stored in the keyword search buffer 5k is stored as a candidate document in the candidate document storage buffer 5l, and the content of the candidate document number storage buffer 5m is increased by "1". continue,
The keyword search unit 5f sequentially executes the above-described series of processes on the document data 32 to 3n. That is, the above process is executed for all document data stored in the document data storage device 3. (Step S3).

[0031] When the process in step S3 is completed, the contents of the candidate document storage buffer 5l are referenced to determine whether there is document data that includes the keyword input in step S2 in its text data, that is, if the candidate document is You can check whether it exists or not. If the condition is not met (no candidate document exists), the process proceeds to step S5, and if the condition is met (candidate document exists), the process proceeds to step S6. (
Step S4).

[0032] In step S5, a message indicating that the corresponding document was not found is displayed on the display screen of the display device 2, and then the process returns to step S2 to prompt the user to enter a new keyword, and the process described above is continued. repeat.

In step S6, the candidate document list display unit 5g is activated, and the candidate document list display unit 5g refers to the contents of the text data portion of each document data stored in the candidate document storage buffer 5l, and displays the document. For each document, the document content representation is displayed as an element of the candidate document list. The document content representations are composed of character strings, and each document content representation is stored within a rectangular area on the screen of the display device 2 for later processing, and the outline of this rectangle is displayed. This step S6 consists of five steps, steps S61 to S65, and the processing in step S6 will be described in detail below.

First, by referring to the contents of the text data portion of the document data stored in the candidate document storage buffer 5l, a portion consisting of a character string containing a keyword stored in the keyword storage buffer 5i is extracted. Store in character string storage buffer 5n. Here, the unit to be extracted is a sentence, that is, a unit separated by a period (“.”) in the text data. Note that if there are multiple locations that include keywords in the text part of one candidate document data,
The first one that appears is adopted. FIG. 6 shows an example of a character string 11 extracted with the word "workstation" as a keyword from the original text 10 shown in FIG. 5 stored in the candidate document storage buffer 5l. This extraction result is stored in the character string storage buffer 5n. (Step S61).

Next, the extracted character string stored in the character string storage buffer 5n is analyzed. That is, first, the extracted character string 11 is decomposed into a subject, a predicate, an object, a complement, and a modifier, as shown in FIG. 7, to obtain syntax tree information that is list-format data. The obtained syntax tree information is stored in the syntax tree storage buffer 5p. FIG. 7 shows an example of the contents of the syntax tree information 12 stored in the syntax tree storage buffer 5p as a result of performing syntax interpretation on the extracted character string 11 shown in FIG. (Step S62).

After the syntax tree information is stored in the syntax tree storage buffer 5p, the syntax tree information in the syntax tree storage buffer 5p is referred to, and the main species verb in the syntax tree and each phrase directly connected to this main verb are extracted. , sentence skeleton data 13 is generated by combining these. The generated sentence skeleton data is stored in the sentence skeleton data storage buffer 5q. FIG. 8 shows an example of the sentence skeleton data 13 generated from the syntax tree information shown in FIG. 7 and stored in the sentence skeleton data storage buffer 5q. The sentence skeleton data generated in this way is expressed as a shorter and simplified sentence than the character string extracted from the candidate document data. (Step S63).

Furthermore, the character string of the contents of the sentence skeleton data storage buffer 5q is displayed as a document content representation of the candidate document within a rectangular area on the screen of the display device 2, and the outline of this rectangle is displayed. (Step S64, Step S6
5).

As described above, the candidate document list display section 5g
is started, steps S61 to S65
The above process is executed for each document data stored in the candidate document storage buffer 5l. The order in which document content expressions corresponding to each document are displayed on the screen is performed according to the order stored in the candidate document storage buffer 5l. FIG. 9 shows an example of the list 14 of candidate documents displayed on the screen of the display device 2 in this manner.

When the process of displaying the list of candidate documents in step S6 is completed, the document selection section 5h is activated. When the document selection section 5h is activated, the mouse 1 of the input device 1
The user inputs a position on the screen of the display device 2 through the arrow b. Here, if the position specified by the user is inside an icon representing an end command similar to the icon displayed in step S1, the series of search processes ends. (Step S7, Step S8).

[0040] Furthermore, if the position specified by the user is
If it is inside a rectangular area on the screen that includes the document content representation shown in FIG. The display section 5i is activated. When the document display section 5i is activated, text data, image data, etc. that constitute the read document data are displayed on the screen. When the document data display processing is completed, control returns to step S7, and the documents displayed in the candidate document list are selected again in order to display new document data. Note that if the position specified by the user is outside the rectangular area on the screen that includes the document content representation, the process returns to step S7 and the position is input again in order to have the user specify the correct position. (Step S9, Step S10).

[0041] In the above embodiment, when displaying a list of candidate documents, syntax analysis is performed on a sentence-by-sentence basis and this is used as an element of the list of candidate documents. However, the present invention is not limited to this. A sentence may be parsed and the results may be grouped together as elements of a list of candidate documents.

Furthermore, in the above embodiment, sentence skeleton data is displayed as an element of the candidate document list through syntax analysis, but the present invention is not limited to this, and analysis data analyzed through other sentence analysis processes may be displayed. You can do it like this. For example, morphological analysis is performed on a character string containing a keyword stored in the character string storage buffer 5n, and a region containing the relevant keyword and a certain number of words, for example up to two words, before and after the keyword is extracted. At this time, attached words (for example, の, wo, ni, etc.) are not counted as the number of words, and there are no more than a predetermined number of words that meet the above conditions before the corresponding keyword in the target character string. In this case, the beginning of the sentence to be extracted is the beginning of the target sentence. Character string 1 containing keywords extracted from candidate document data shown in FIG.
Figure 1 shows an example of character string 15 for which morphological analysis was performed on 1.
0. In this example, as in the case of performing syntax analysis, the resulting sentence is simplified and includes keywords compared to the character string extracted from the candidate document data. In short, any text analysis method may be used as long as it simplifies a character string containing a keyword, that is, a candidate sentence, and converts it into a shortened sentence.

Further, the present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiments, and it goes without saying that various modifications can be made without departing from the gist of the present invention.

[0044]

As described in detail above, according to the document search device of the present invention, a portion of text that includes a specified keyword is used as an element of a list of candidate documents obtained by searching using a keyword. By displaying a simplified sentence skeleton when enumerating documents, you can increase the number of candidate documents that can be displayed on the display screen at once, reducing the number of screen scroll operations. , the operability can be improved.

[0045] Furthermore, by displaying the skeleton of a simplified sentence that includes keywords in the text as an element of the list of candidate documents, it is possible to instantly determine whether a document given as a candidate is the desired one. This can be done quickly and accurately, and as a result, it has great practical effects, such as making it possible to significantly reduce the user's effort required to search for a desired item in a document database.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a document search device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a storage format of document data in a document data storage device.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the internal configuration of the memory device.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an outline of the flow of processing.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of original text data.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of extracted candidate sentences.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of the contents of a syntax tree storage buffer.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of the contents of a sentence skeleton data storage buffer.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example in which document content expressions are displayed for each document.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing another embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

1... Input device (keyword input means) 3... Document data storage device (document data storage means) 5f... Keyword search section (keyword search means) 5g... Candidate document list display section (document list display means) 5h... Document selection section ( Document selection means) 5i...Document display section (document display means)

Claims (1)

[Claims] Claim 1: Document data storage means for storing document data consisting of text data, diagram data, etc.; keyword input means for inputting keywords for searching document data stored in the document data storage means; and keyword search means for searching the document data storage means for a document containing the keyword input from the keyword input means, the keyword extracted by the keyword search means for each document data. storage means for storing candidate sentences containing the keywords; and a candidate document list display that performs sentence analysis processing on the candidate sentences stored in the storage means and displays simplified sentences containing the above keywords as elements of the candidate document list. means, a document selection means for specifying one of the above elements in the document list displayed by the candidate document list display means, and a document display for displaying the contents of document data corresponding to the document specified by the document selection means. A document retrieval device characterized by comprising: means.