JPH04340164A - Information retrieval processing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To speed up data base retrieval processing using multi-keyword and to rapidly execute partial coincidence retrieval to be executed by inputting an optional character string. CONSTITUTION:Character position information constituted of a record identification(ID) code of a keyword including a character in a keyword string to be retrieved, a character position order code indicating a character position in the keyword string and a keyword attribute code indicating the logical section of the keyword is formed and a retrieval file obtained by grouping the information in each character sort is previously formed. At the time of inputting a retrieval request, the character position information of characters constituting each retrieval input is extracted from the file and collated and a keyword string record having a common record ID code, equal character order and the same keyword attribute code as/to the retrieval input is extracted from the retrieval file.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information retrieval processing method for performing information retrieval. The present invention is particularly suitable for performing partial match searches using multi-keywords, and can significantly reduce the number of character string matches between input multi-search input strings and registered keywords. The present invention relates to an information search processing method that can perform partial match (middle match, prefix match, postfix match) and complete match search processing at high speed. The present invention is suitable for an information search processing method that performs multi-keyword partial match search processing in a database system.

0002

[Prior Art] Conventionally, strings of keywords possessed by records to be searched are compared with search input strings from the beginning to the end, and keywords that match the input string specified by the searcher and the search conditions are searched. You can use the sequential search method to search for record numbers, or create a string that can be searched from keywords and store the search file in an index format. An index method that searches using an index structure is a common partial match search technique using multiple keywords.

0003

[Problem to be Solved by the Invention] However, in the sequential search method, the search input character string is checked from the beginning to the end of the keywords of the record to be searched, so when there are a large number of keywords, the search requires many It takes time. For this reason, dedicated processors and LSIs that perform high-speed character string matching have been proposed for large-scale database searches, but these methods are limited in hardware and require a computer to perform the search processing and a dedicated processor. and LSI
It takes a long time to transfer character strings between the two systems, and the challenge is to achieve a high speed that satisfies the system.

[0004]Also, although the index method can speed up partial match searches, it has the disadvantage that the search file becomes huge. For this reason, exact, prefix, and suffix searches are used, but intermediate matches are often not supported. This is to do an intermediate match,
In addition to search indexes for exact matches, prefix matches, and postfix matches, a large number of indexes for intermediate matches are required.
The main reasons are that the storage capacity of the search file becomes huge, the search time increases accordingly, and the maintenance of the search file is not easy. Also, depending on the system, search for all prefixes and suffixes of keywords may not be supported due to limitations on the size of the search file. However, searchers often memorize characteristic characters or character strings in keywords, and therefore there is a need for support for partial match searches including intermediate matches to enable smooth searches.

[0005] The present inventor focused on the fact that the Japanese language has the characteristic that the same characters or the same character strings rarely appear in words that can be used as keywords, and stored keyword constituent characters for each character type. Create a search file, and when searching, retrieve the same characters from the search file as the constituent characters of any character string entered in the search, and speed up the search by checking the continuity of any character string in the search file. I found out that it can be done.

[0006] From the above-mentioned viewpoint, the present invention can realize high-speed partial match searches using multi-keywords targeting a huge database system, and is not limited to specific hardware, and can perform search processing. Provides a highly versatile information retrieval processing method that eliminates the need to transfer character strings to and from a dedicated processor or LSI because it is performed in main memory, and allows arbitrary character string searches by focusing on characters and character positions. The purpose is to

[0007]

[Means for Solving the Problems] The first feature of the present invention is that
record identification code assigning means for assigning a code in ascending order to each record to be searched; keyword attribute code assigning means for assigning an attribute code indicating a logical classification of the keyword to each keyword included in the record; character position order code providing means for disassembling each character and giving each character a character position order code indicating its position in the keyword; character position information comprising the record identification means, a keyword attribute code and a character position order code; The present invention is characterized by comprising means for creating a search file by creating a search file by storing this character position information in an area for each character type.

[0008] The character position information is about a keyword string created by arranging each keyword of a record in a keyword attribute area corresponding to a keyword attribute code.
It is created by converting all the characters of each keyword into a code consisting of integers using a record identification code, keyword attribute code, and character position order code.Record identification code x n + (Pa -1) + character position order code n: number of keyword string characters Pa: preferably given as a number representing the first character position in the keyword string of the keyword attribute area of the keyword attribute code a.

A second feature of the present invention is that the present invention is provided with a search file created according to the first feature, and includes means for extracting character position information of the same characters as the constituent characters of the search input string from the search file; Among the character position information of each retrieved character, the record identification code and keyword attribute code are common, the character position order code is in the same order as the character string of the search input, and the keyword attribute code is the same as the search input. and means for outputting a record identification code corresponding to a search input character string as a search result based on the extracted combination of character position information.

[0010] Furthermore, it is preferable that combinations of character position information that can form a character string of a search input are extracted in order of characters that appear less frequently in all keywords of the search input.

[0011] Furthermore, in order to extract combinations of character position information that can constitute a character string of a search input, let i be the character position order code of a character that appears less frequently in all the keywords of the search input character string, and set the character position order code of a character that appears frequently When the position order code is j, (character position information of the character with character position order code i) - (character position information of the character with character position order code j) = i
-j is preferably used.

0012

[Operation] In Japanese character strings, the frequency in which the same characters appear is lower than in English. In particular, the frequency with which the same kanji appears repeatedly is low. For example, the Kojien dictionary (published by Iwanami Shoten) has about 9 million characters in its explanatory text for headwords, but when we look at the frequency of appearance of JIS level 1 kanji, we find that the average frequency of occurrence is 1155 times. Therefore, for the 2965 JIS Level 1 kanji, if the search input is n characters, the average number of characters to be matched extracted from the explanatory document of the headword in Kojien is n×1155 characters. Generally, a search input is a few dozen characters or less, so even if the string includes characters that appear frequently, the number of times it will be matched will be extremely small compared to a method that sequentially matches all characters.

Furthermore, in Japanese character strings, especially in Kanji character strings, the frequency of occurrence of identical character strings is extremely low. For example, although there are many terms that use the two character strings ``communication'', the character string ``communication...'' is ``communication line''.
, the frequency of occurrence of the same four characters, such as "communication device", is extremely low. Therefore, as the constituent characters of the search input string are compared with the search file, keywords that are different from the search input string are deleted from the keywords of search target candidates obtained so far, and the keywords that differ from the search input string are removed. The search target is narrowed down for each constituent character. In particular, if the matching is performed in order of the characters that appear less frequently among all the keywords in the search input, the search will be further narrowed down and the number of matching matches can be reduced.

[0014] Therefore, in correspondence to each character constituting the keyword of the record to be searched, a record identification code that can identify the record, a keyword attribute code that can identify the attribute of the keyword, and a character position in the keyword can be specified. Create character position information from the possible character position order codes, store this character position information for each character type to create a search file, and perform a match against the search input string against this search file to find characters. The number of times of matching processing in column search can be significantly reduced.

This search file is created as follows.

First, record identification codes are assigned to each record to be searched in ascending order according to the registration order. Next, the logical type of the keyword that each record has is set as an attribute, and a keyword attribute code indicating the attribute is assigned. For example, in the case of a book search system, a keyword attribute code indicating attributes such as book name, author name, publisher name, year of publication, and abstract is assigned. Furthermore, the keyword is broken down character by character, and a character position order code indicating the character position from the beginning of the keyword is given to each character. Character position information for each character of the keyword is generated from these record identification codes, keyword attribute codes, and character position order codes. At this time, so that keyword attributes can be represented by character positions, the first character position of the keyword, which is set in advance for each keyword attribute code, is added to the character position information as a constant. This character position information is grouped by character type, and each group is assembled to create a search file. Therefore, this search file has a file structure in which character position information is stored for each character type.

In the search process, one or more pairs of a search input string and a search input string attribute are input. For each search input string, the search input string is decomposed character by character, and the character position information of the same character as the decomposed characters is extracted from the search file, and the record identification code is common and the character position order code is the same as the search input. Combinations of character position information that are in the same order as the character string and whose keyword attribute code is the same as the search input are collated and extracted. A record identification code corresponding to the search input character string is extracted as a search result from the character position information corresponding to each retrieved search input.

[0018] This matching process checks the continuity of character strings and attribute matches between the search input and the search file. Based on the character position information in the search file, the records have the same identification code and are searched. This is done by extracting keywords that have the same input character position order and keyword attribute code.

[0019] This eliminates the need to match all keywords in the search file, and it is only necessary to match the character position information of the same characters as the constituent characters of the search input in the search file, so the number of matches can be reduced sequentially. This can be significantly reduced compared to matching. Furthermore, in Japanese words, the frequency of occurrence of the same character string is low, and each time character matching is performed, the search target is narrowed down, so the number of matching times is reduced.

[0020]Furthermore, when comparing the character position information extracted from the search file, if the search is performed in descending order of the frequency of occurrence among all the keywords in the search input, the search target will be further narrowed down and the number of matching matches will be further reduced. can.

When character position information matching the search input is found in this way, the record corresponding to the record identification code corresponding to the search input is extracted and output to the searcher as a search result.

[0022]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Examples of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows the configuration of an information retrieval processing device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The information search processing device of this embodiment includes a CPU 1 that performs various arithmetic processing or judgment processing, programs for search processing, search file creation, etc., search files created or used to perform search processing, search input, etc. a memory 2 for storing information, a keyboard 4, an input/output section 3 for connecting a display 5, an external storage device control section 6 for connecting an external storage device 7 for storing various information, a CPU 1, a memory 2, an input/output section 3, an external Common bus 8 connecting storage device control unit 6
Equipped with.

In the information search process in this embodiment, a search file is created by storing the constituent characters of each keyword for each character type for a keyword string created from multi-keywords possessed by records to be searched for the search process. The search process is divided into two: search file creation processing, which performs matching with the search file, and search processing, which extracts records with keywords that match the search input.

First, the search file creation process will be explained.

This search file creation process can be roughly divided into: 1) Securing a search file area, 2) Adding character position information to each keyword component character, and 2) Storing character position information grouped by character type in a file. It can be divided into three parts. Each of these processes will be explained.

■ Securing search file area Characters constituting keywords included in the record to be registered are classified according to the JIS code table, and the frequency of appearance is counted for each character type described in the JIS code table. As a result, the number of character position information registered in each character type group constituting the search file can be known, so that an area for the search file composed of all character type groups can be secured. At the same time, from the number of character position information registered in each character type group, the starting addresses of the character type groups consecutively stored in the search file can be determined. The character field address table shown in FIG. 2 is an arrangement of the first addresses of these character type groups in the order of their description in the JIS code table.

■ Adding character position information to each keyword component character The character position information described here is used to assign each keyword to a keyword string created by arranging each keyword of a record in the keyword attribute area corresponding to the keyword attribute number. It is created using a record number that indicates the registration order of records to which all the constituent characters belong, a character position number that indicates the position in which the character appears in the keyword, and a keyword attribute number that indicates the logical type of the keyword.

First, record numbers will be explained. For example, in a general book search system, books are searched using keywords such as book title, author name, publisher name, year of publication, and abstract. At this time, the record includes the book name, author name, publisher name, publication year,
The search target consists of abstract keywords, and a record number is assigned by assigning a number in ascending order from 1 to the order in which this record is registered.

Next, keyword attribute numbers will be explained. Generally, a searcher inputs a keyword that is easy to identify the book to be searched, or inputs a stored keyword. For this reason, the book search system adds keyword attributes to each keyword, for example, book title, author name, publisher name, publication year, and abstract, and creates a logical association between the search input and the book search system's keywords. . Here, "1" is added to the book name as the keyword attribute number.
, "2" for the author name, "3" for the publisher name, "4" for the year of publication
, give the abstract a "5".

Next, character position numbers will be explained. Numbers are assigned to each character constituting each keyword in ascending order of 1, 2, 3, etc. starting from the first character of each keyword, and these numbers are used as character position numbers.

Next, the keyword string will be explained. In order to perform a partial match search for a keyword included in a record by matching the string with a search input string, all the keywords included in the record are concatenated to form a character string, and this is used as a keyword string. That is, each keyword is arranged in a fixed-length keyword attribute area corresponding to a keyword attribute number to create a keyword string. As a result, the attribute of the keyword to which the character belongs can be determined from the position of the character in the keyword string. Note that following each keyword attribute area, an END symbol indicating a break between the keyword attribute areas is stored in the keyword string. This END symbol is assigned an unused code in the JIS code table, and here code A3B
Let it be B.

For this keyword string, character position information is created by converting all the characters constituting the keyword into codes made up of integers from the record number, keyword attribute number, and character position number. This character position information is an integer code given by the following equation (1). Character position information code = record number x n + (Pa -1
)+p...(1) n: Number of characters in the keyword string Pa: First character position in the keyword string in the keyword attribute area of keyword attribute number a p: Character position number

For example, the size of the keyword attribute area of the keyword string is book name = 64 bytes 32 characters, author name = 3
2 bytes 16 characters, Publisher = 64 bytes 32 characters, Publication year = 8 bytes 4 characters, Abstract = 400 Bytes 200 In a book search system with 200 characters, the record number is 100.
The record is ``Book name = Structure of correspondence'', ``Author name = Ichiro Tanaka'', ``Publisher = Taiheiyo Publishing'', ``Year of publication =
In the case of ``1990'' and ``abstract = available to first-time users'', the keyword string is as shown in FIG. At this time, since the keyword string is 578 bytes (289 characters), the character position information of each character is constructed as shown in FIG.

[0036] If character position information is constituted by each 4-byte code in this way, it is possible to handle 232/289 ≒ 14.86 million keyword strings each having 289 characters.

■ Registration of character position information in the search file Next, the character position information given to each character is registered in the search file. As mentioned above, the character type group is
They are stored in the search file in the order listed in the JIS code table. Then, the character position information of each character is registered in each character type group. Registration of this character position information is performed by storing the character position information at the beginning of each unstored area of the character type group. Therefore, if record numbers are assigned in the order of registration, character position information will be registered in ascending numerical order within the character type group.

FIG. 5 shows an example in which the character position information of the book name "Structure of Correspondence" mentioned above is registered in the search file. At this time, character position information within each group is stored in ascending order. This file capacity is 4 bytes of character position information.

[Math 1] become.

The additional registration of character position information is performed by adding a new code to the beginning of the unstored area of the group corresponding to each character of each keyword included in the additional record. Further, deletion is performed by changing the corresponding character position information in the group corresponding to each character of each keyword included in the deletion record to a special symbol. This allows additional registration and deletion to be performed in a short time.

As described above, the character position information stored for each character type group in this search file can be retrieved using the character field head address of the character field address table as a directory.

The flow of the above search file creation process is shown in FIGS. 6a and 6b.

That is, the frequency of appearance of character types is counted to create a character field address table (S11, 12), and an area for the search file is secured (S13). Next, initialize the record registration order counter to k=1 and set the record number to "1".
”, set the number of characters in the keyword string to n = 289, and set the first character position of the keyword attribute area to P1 = 1 for the book name.
, P2 = 34 for author name, P3 for publisher name
=51, P4 =84 for publication year, and P5 =89 for abstract (S14). Then, the first record is taken out (S15). This is the pre-processing for registration. From here, the registration process starts for each record. First,
The keyword attribute number is set to a=1 (S16), and the keyword with the keyword attribute number a is extracted from the record (S17). Furthermore, the number of characters constituting the keyword is set to m, the character position number is set to p=1, and the keyword attribute number is set to a.
The first character position of the keyword attribute area corresponding to Pa
(S18). Next, in order from the first character of the retrieved keyword, character position information corresponding to character position number p is calculated using the formula (2) of D=k×n+(Pa −1)+p
) (S19).

Then, the character field directory (character field first address) indicating the character field of the search file in which the character type group of the character at character position number p is stored is retrieved from the character field address table (S20), and the character field Character position information is stored at the beginning of the unstored line in the character column of the search file indicated by the directory (S21). And p=p+1, m
= m-1, and when all characters in the keyword have been processed, the keyword attribute number is incremented by 1 with a=a+1, and the process moves to the next keyword (S24, S25). Also,
After processing all the keywords a record has, k
=k+1, the record registration order counter is incremented by 1 and the process moves to the next record (S26, S27, S28). The registration process ends when all records are processed (S26).
.

Next, search processing using the search file created in this manner will be explained.

In this embodiment, character position information extracted from a search file is used to match keywords containing the same character string as the search input character string, and after confirming that the keyword has the same attributes as the search input, This will be explained using an example of searching for records common to all search input strings.

First, the search process can be roughly divided into the following components. ■Calculate the first address of the character field in the character field address table that corresponds to each character of the search input character string. ■Arrange the search input strings in descending order of the frequency of occurrence among all keywords. - Extract the corresponding character type groups from the search file in order from the beginning of the rearranged character string, and extract the combination of character position information that matches the order of the search input character string from the character position information stored therein. (2) Extract character position information having the same attributes as the search input from the extracted character position information. ■■〜■
After repeating for the number of search inputs, the record number common to all search input strings is output as the search result.

Next, each process will be specifically explained.

■ Calculation of the first address of the character field in the character field address table that corresponds to each character in the search input character string.Similar to the time of creating the search file, calculate the ranking of the search input characters in the JIS code table, and use this. This is an address pointer for each search input character in the character field address table.

[0049] ■ Rearranging the order of occurrence frequency. Then, by referring to the first address of the character column in the character column address table that indicates the first address of each character type group in the search file, check the appearance frequency of the search input character, and check the appearance frequency of the search input character. Sort the columns in descending order of frequency of occurrence across all keywords. As mentioned above, the character field first address in the character field address table indicates the first address of each character type group stored in the search file, and if you take the difference from the next character field first address,
The appearance frequency of character types in all keywords can be determined from the number of character position information stored in each character type group.

This is because the number of times of matching between the character position information of each character stored in the search file can be significantly reduced by performing matching starting with characters that appear less frequently. In other words, when checking the continuity of characters by comparing character position information, in order to check the record number, character position number, and keyword attribute number in the character position information in two character type groups, The fewer pieces of character position information stored, the fewer times the matching can be performed. Therefore, when character position information is verified, performing the verification starting from characters that appear less frequently reduces the number of times of verification. In particular, as the number of search input characters increases, the rate of inclusion of characters with low appearance frequency increases, so the reduction effect is large.

① Collation of Character Strings The character position information stored in each character type group is extracted by referring to the character field address table starting from characters with a low appearance frequency. Then, based on the extracted character position information,
Combinations of character position information in which the record numbers are the same among each character type group and the difference in character position numbers is equal to the character position difference in the search input character string are extracted in order from the character type groups with the lowest appearance frequency.

This character position information is checked using the following formula (where i is the character position number of a character that appears less frequently in all the keywords in the search input character string, and j is the character position number of a character that appears more frequently) 3) Extract the character position information such that (character position information within the character type group of the character with character position number i) - (character position information within the character type group of the character with character position number j) = i - j ... (3) Bye.

In this process of collating character position information between character type groups, the difference between the character position information of a character type group that appears less frequently and the character position information of a character type group that appears more frequently is calculated to determine the sequence of characters. Verify.

Assuming that arbitrary constituent characters in the search input string are A and B, in order to extract the corresponding character position information, the character position number difference between A and B is L, and the character position of group A is extracted. If the information is Ax and the character position information of group B is By, then if Ax +L>By, delete By If Ax +L<By, delete Ax If Ax +L=By, delete both Ax and By as a match. The number of times of matching is reduced by deleting character position information from the matching target.

For example, the character position information of group A is 571.
, 1140, 10230, 11365, 1192
8, 13069 Group B character position information is 569, 1706, 10231, 10235, 1
When the 1362 character position number difference L=1, the number of times of matching between these two groups is only 7 times in total, and there is no need to match all the character position information within the group.

① Matching of Keyword Attribute Number The keyword attribute is matched with respect to the character position number of the character position information obtained from the character string matching. That is, if the character position number is 1
~32, the keyword attribute of the character position information is the book name, and if the character position number is 34-49, the keyword attribute of the character position information is the author name, and the character position number is 51~49.
82, the keyword attribute of the character position information is the publisher name, and if the character position number is 84-87, the keyword attribute of the character position information is the year of publication, and the character position number is 89-87.
288, it can be seen that the keyword attribute of the character position information is abstract. Therefore, only the character position information that is the same as the attribute specified at the time of search input is extracted from the character position information obtained by character string matching.

① Extraction of record numbers Repeat ① to ② as many times as the number of search inputs, and extract the record number common to all search input strings from among the character position information corresponding to each search input string obtained. In the above embodiment, the case where there is one or more search inputs has been described. In addition, in the case of multiple search inputs, we have explained an example in which a logical AND operation is performed between each search input, but in the case of multiple search inputs that involve logical operations other than logical AND, character position information remaining as a matching result is used. A specified logical operation is performed in association with each search input, and a record number that satisfies the logic of the search input is output as a search result.

[0058] When specifying one search input with multiple character strings, which is often the case when targeting items with a large number of characters such as abstracts, after completing the keyword attribute matching of the first character string, For the second and subsequent strings,
Extract the character position information with the record number and keyword attribute number obtained so far from the character type group of the first character to be matched in the string, and use the obtained character position information as the character type group of the first character in the string matching. Perform matching processing on other characters in the string.

The above operations (1) to (2) will be explained using specific examples.

Assume that a book name is specified as a search target and "correspondence document" is specified as a search input character string. In this case, the attribute number of the attribute of the keyword of the book name is "1".

For example, if the frequency of appearance of each character in all keywords is in the order of ``calligraphy''<``bun''<``xin''<``tsu'' and matching is performed in this order, first
Extract character position information for which the difference is "-1" by using the above formula (3) between the character position information taken from the character field of ``calligraphy'' and the character position information taken from the character field of ``sentence''. Then, the character position information in “calligraphy” in the search file is “28”.
904" and "28903" in the "sentence" can be extracted as continuous character position information.

[0062] Next, the character position information remaining as a matching result in "calligraphy" and the character position information extracted from the character field of the search file corresponding to "shin" are similarly calculated using equation (3). , extracting the character position information for which the difference is "-2", the character position information "28904" in "calligraphy" and the character position information "28902" in "shin" are converted into continuous character position information. can be extracted. Similarly,
Character position information “28904” in “calligraphy” and character position information “28901” in “tsu” can be extracted as continuous character position information. Furthermore, since the keyword attribute is "book name", character position numbers 1 to 3 are selected from among the character position information remaining from previous character string matching.
As the character position information of 2, "28901" to "289
04'' can be extracted.

[0063] Since the number of characters in the keyword string is "289", the character position number is 28901 ÷ 289 = 10
0 From the remainder 1, it can be seen that it is 1 to 4. It can also be seen that the record number to which this character string belongs is 100.

This search processing operation is shown in flowcharts in FIGS. 7a and 7b.

In other words, the number of characters in the keyword string is n=28.
9, the character position range Pa of the keyword attribute area is P1 = 1 to 32 for the book name, and P2 = 34 to 4 for the author name.
9, Publisher name is P3 = 51-82, Publication year is P4 = 8
4 to 87, the abstract is set to P5 = 89 to 288, the keyword attribute number is set to a = 1 (S31), and if there is a search input character string with keyword attribute number a, it is extracted (S32, S33). From here on, the search input string will be matched. Therefore, (number of characters in search input string) −
1 is the number of matches q (S34), and the characters are rearranged in descending order of appearance frequency among all the keywords of the search input characters (
S35). Then, the character position information stored in the character type group corresponding to each rearranged character is extracted from the search file (S36). Next, the character position numbers of the characters that appear less frequently in all the keywords in the search input string are i,
When the character position number of a character that appears frequently is j, (
A combination of character position information that is (character position information of the character with character position number i)-(character position information of the character with character position number j)=i-j is extracted (S37). Similar processing is performed for the remaining characters in the search input string (S38, S
39), extract only the record numbers whose character position numbers are within the character position range Pa of the keyword attribute number a from the remaining character position information. To extract the character position number from the character position information, the following equation (4) is used. (Character position information) ÷ (Number of keyword string characters) = Record number Remaining character position number... (4) In the processing so far, records that have the search input string as a character string and also have the same keyword as the search input attribute The number is known (S40). The same process is performed up to the abstract, and a record number having the same keyword as the attribute entered for search is extracted (S41, S42). When all the search input strings are compared, the record numbers common to all the search input strings are output as search results for the remaining record numbers (S43).

[0066]

Effects of the Invention As explained above, the present invention provides a search method based on the record identification code to which the character belongs, the character position order code, and the attribute number indicating the type of keyword for each character type of the constituent characters of the keyword that the record to be searched has. A search file is created that stores character position information, and the character position information is extracted from this search file for each character type that makes up the search input character string to search for a character string that matches the search input.

[0067] Therefore, (1) the number of times of character string collation for search processing can be reduced, so high-speed searching can be performed; (2) search processing can be performed by focusing on characters and character positions; You can search using any character string, (3
) High-speed searches can be achieved using only software without the use of dedicated hardware, so partial match searches using multiple keywords can be performed efficiently with general-purpose information processing equipment, making it highly versatile. (4) Databases When used in the system, there is no need to create a partial match search string that can be used to create a search file, and a search file can be automatically created from the keywords of the record to be searched. This has the excellent effect of making it possible to construct a database system economically and efficiently.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 shows a configuration example of an information search processing device used in an embodiment of the present invention.

[Fig. 2] Character column address table of the embodiment.

[Fig. 3] Keyword string of the example.

FIG. 4: An example of creating character position information according to the embodiment.

FIG. 5: An example of registering a search file in the embodiment.

FIGS. 6a and 6b are flowcharts illustrating search file creation processing procedures of the embodiment.

FIGS. 7a and 7b are flowcharts illustrating the search processing procedure of the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

1...CPU 2...Memory 3...Input/output section 4...Keyboard 5...Display 6...External storage device control unit 7...External storage device 8...Common bus

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. Record identification code assigning means for assigning an ascending code to each record to be searched, and keyword attribute code assigning means for assigning an attribute code indicating a logical classification of the keyword to each keyword included in the record. and a character position order code assigning means for disassembling this keyword into each character and assigning a character position order code to each character indicating its position in the keyword, and the record identification code, the keyword attribute code, and the character position order code. An information search processing method comprising means for creating character position information consisting of and storing this character position information in an area for each character type to create a search file. [Claim 2] The character position information is determined by record identification code x n + (Pa 2. The information search processing method according to claim 1, wherein -1) + character position order code n: number of characters in keyword string Pa: given as a numerical code representing the first character position in the keyword string in the keyword attribute area of the keyword attribute code a. [Claim 3] Regarding the keyword string of the record to be searched, record identification codes assigned to each record in ascending order for each character constituting each keyword, and keyword attribute codes indicating the logical classification of the keywords included in this record. and a character position order code indicating the position of that character in the keyword.The search file stores character position information for each character type, and searches for the character position information of the same characters as the constituent characters of the search input string. Between the means for extracting from the file and the character position information of each extracted character, the record identification code and keyword attribute code are common, the character position order code is in the same order as the character string of the search input, and the keyword attribute code is An information search processing method comprising means for extracting a combination of character position information equal to a search input, and means for outputting a record identification code corresponding to the search input as a search result based on the extracted combination of character position information. . 4. The information search processing method according to claim 3, wherein combinations of character position information that can constitute a character string of the search input are extracted in order of characters appearing less frequently in all keywords of the search input. [Claim 5] Extraction of combinations of character position information that can constitute a character string of a search input is carried out by setting the character position order code of characters that appear less frequently in all keywords of the search input character string to i, and the characters of characters that appear more frequently. When the position order code is j, a request to extract character position information that matches (character position information of the character with character position order code i) - (character position information of the character with character position order code j) = i - j The information search processing method according to claim 3 or claim 4.