JPH04281563A - Document retrieving device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To output only an explanatory part with respect to a certain retrieval word comprehensively from plural relating documents. CONSTITUTION:A first storage means 5 which stores document information representing a document in which a descriptive part with respect to a certain retrieval word exists and descriptive part information representing the start point and end point of the descriptive part in the document at every retrieval word, and a second storage means 4 which stores the contents of the plural relating documents at every document, respectively are provided, and the document information with respect to an inputted retrieval word and the descriptive part information are retrieved from the first storage means 5, and all the corresponding data are outputted from the second storage means 4, thereby, a purpose described above can be attained.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a search device for searching and outputting a specified search term or a written portion related to the search term in a document stored in a storage device.
In particular, the present invention relates to a document search device that can extract descriptions related to a specified search term from a plurality of related documents and output them all at once.

2. Description of the Related Art For example, when using a computer, it is often necessary to view the design method, operation method, and operation messages related to a certain function all at once. However, if a manual is created by classifying the manuals by function in accordance with this requirement, items that overlap with multiple functions will be described for each function, which has the disadvantage of significantly increasing the number of pages in the manual. For this reason, manuals for computers, etc. are generally divided into ``design manuals,'' ``operation manuals,'' and ``message manuals.'' When using manuals divided in this way to investigate matters such as ``creating files,'' It was necessary to examine each of the above three types of manuals regarding the design method, operation method, and messages during operation. In view of this need, there is a technique described in, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 62-42229 as a technique for searching a specified term in a document. This stores the document in a storage means, and also displays the headings in the document on its display page.
It is stored together with the display line, and when a certain heading is selected and designated, the display page of that heading and the document after the display line are read and displayed. Further, the term search function of a word processor searches for a specified term from the first page and displays the page where the term is first found. When a continuous search is specified, the next position where that term appears is searched.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The above-mentioned prior art cannot automatically extract only chapters, sections, or paragraphs that include specified headings or terms. Therefore, there is a problem in that the operator must read before and after the searched term to determine and extract the chapter, section, or paragraph related to the specified heading or term. Furthermore, when searching for a document divided into a plurality of documents such as the above-mentioned manual, there is a problem in that the operator needs to perform the above operations for each document. An object of the present invention is to output detailed information from the start position to the end position of an explanation part regarding a specified search term. Another object of the present invention is to extract and output explanatory sections related to the search term from a plurality of documents at once by specifying the search term once.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a search device having an input means for inputting a search term and an output means for outputting a search result based on the search term. a first storage means for storing, for each search term, document information indicating a document in which a written portion related to the search term exists and written portion information indicating a start point and an end point of the written portion in the document; and contents of a plurality of related documents. is stored for each document, and the first storage means is searched for the search term input from the input means, and document information and written partial information corresponding to the search term are read out. An extraction means is provided for extracting a written part related to information from the second storage means.

[Operation] A first storage means for storing, for each search term, document information indicating a document in which a description part related to the search term exists and description part information indicating the start position and end position of the description part in this document; A second storage means is provided for storing the content of the document for each document, and by specifying a search term, it is searched whether or not the search term is registered in the first storage means, and whether it is registered or not. For example, all the corresponding data can be output from the second storage means based on the information on the document in which the description part related to the search term exists, and the start position information and end position information in the document.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the overall configuration of the present invention. C.P.
A terminal device 2, a printer device 3, a document file 4, and a search term document association file 5 are connected to U1. The CPU 1 performs conversational processing with the terminal device 2, outputs search results to the printer device 3, and extracts explanation pages for search terms from the document file 4. The search term document association file 5 is made up of a magnetic disk drive or the like, and is a file that stores, for all search terms, the start page and end page of the portion where the explanation is described in each document. FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the search term document association file 5 in detail. In FIG. 2, the start page and end page of the part explained in document l regarding "search term 1" are first stored as a pair, and then the same "search term 1" is stored in document m. The start page and end page of the portion described in 2 are stored as a pair. Next, the start page and end page of the portion explained in document n regarding "search term 2" are stored as a pair. For example, if an explanation regarding "search term 1" also exists in document n, it is sufficient to store it after the start page and end page of document m, and similarly, an explanation regarding "search term 2" is stored in document l. or document m, it may be stored before the start page and end page of document n. Note that the storage order of the start page and end page in each document in the search term document association file 5 does not need to be 1, m, n, . . . . The document file 4 is made up of a magnetic disk device, etc., and stores all pages of each document. FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the relationship between the search term document association file 5 and the document file 4. As shown in FIG. In Figure 3, regarding the search term "file", pages 3 to 5 of document A contain information about "how to estimate file capacity", pages 13 to 18 contain information about "file compatibility", and pages 13 to 18 of document A contain information about "file compatibility"; Pages 10 to 10 contain instructions on how to operate files. Similarly, "line connection"
Regarding the search term, "line operation method" is described on pages 18 to 20 of document B. Next, the flow of processing in this embodiment will be explained using FIG. 4. When a search term is input from the terminal device 2, the CPU 1 reads the search term document association file 5, searches whether the search term exists therein (step 30), and checks whether the search term exists or not. A determination is made (step 31). If the search term does not exist in the search term document association file 5, an error message indicating that the search term is not registered in the search term document association file 5 is displayed on the terminal device 2 (step 39), and the process ends. do. On the other hand, if the search term exists in the search term document association file 5, the document number of the next record is read (step 32), and the read record is "END".
” (step 33). If the record read in step 33 is not “END”, read the start page of the next record (step 34).
, it is determined whether the read record is "END" (step 35). If the record read in step 35 is not "END", the end page of the next record is read (step 36). Next step 32
Data from the start page to the end page obtained in steps 34 and 36 is read from the document file 4 corresponding to the document number obtained in step 37 (step 37). The data obtained in step 37 is then output to the printer device 3 (step 38), and the processing from step 34 is repeated. If the record read in step 35 is "END", the process returns to step 32 and reads the next document number. Then, in step 33, the processes from step 32 to step 38 are repeated until the read record becomes "END", and when the read record becomes "END" in step 33, the process ends. According to this embodiment, by simply inputting a search term, explanations related to the search term can be automatically retrieved from each document in order, so that the operator can read each document and start from the start page of the explanation related to the search term. This has the effect of eliminating the need to judge the end page. In the above embodiment, the explanation regarding the search term was specified in page units, but if the start line, start column, end line, end column, etc. are registered in the search term document association file 5, the search terms can be specified in the retrieval unit. can be specified in more detail. Further, in the above embodiment, the search results are output to the printer device 3, but they may be output to a terminal device 2 having a display or a file device such as a magnetic disk device.

According to the present invention, even if there are a plurality of documents, by specifying a search term once, the explanation portions related to the search term in each document can be output at once. Furthermore, according to the present invention, since it is possible to automatically output from the start position to the end position of the explanatory part related to the search term in each document, the operator can automatically output each document There is no need to read the search term to determine where it explains the search term, and the effect is that the explanation regarding the search term can be easily obtained.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining a search term document association file 5 in detail.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the relationship between a search term document association file 5 and a document file 4. FIG.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the flow of processing in this embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

1...CPU, 2...Terminal device, 3...Printer device, 4...Document file, 5...Search term document association file

Claims (1)

[Claims] Claims: 1. A search device comprising input means for inputting a search term and output means for outputting search results based on the search term; a first storage means that stores description part information indicating a start point and an end point of the description part in the document for each of the search terms; and a second storage means that stores the contents of a plurality of related documents for each document. a storage means; the first storage means is searched for the search term inputted from the input means; document information and description part information corresponding to the search term are read; 2. A document retrieval device comprising: an extracting means for extracting data from a storage means.