JPH05324421A - Electronic filing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide the electronic filing device which can easily erase document expired the term of preservation. CONSTITUTION:This electronic filing device to store filing data in a storage medium 25 and to retrieve/read documents as needed by using a central processing unit 21 is provided with calendar part 34, the number of years of preservation is set to document information D, and the documents past the number of preservation years are retrieved and erased based on information from the calendar part 34. Thus, unwanted documents do not occupy the optical disk device 25 and the storage areas can be effectively used.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic file device for filing image data such as a document or a drawing read from an original with an input unit such as an image scanner onto a writable / erasable storage medium such as an optical disk, and more particularly The present invention relates to an electronic file device capable of collectively deleting unnecessary documents in a storage medium.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art An electronic filing device is a device that can be used as an electronic medium when filing information using paper such as documents and drawings. As the electronic medium for filing, an optical disc is used because of its features such as large capacity, good storage and preservation, portability, and quick search by random access. There is, for example, the one shown in FIG.

In FIG. 6, reference numeral 1 is a central processing unit (CPU) for performing data processing and control of the entire apparatus, 2 is a main storage device, 3 is an operating system and a document registration processing program, and is used as a buffer memory. It is a magnetic disk device. The operating system and the document registration processing program are loaded from the magnetic disk device 3 to the main storage device 2. An optical disk device 4 as a file memory writes / reads image data to / from an optical disk 5, which is a storage medium. A writable and erasable optical disc is used for the optical disc device 4. Reference numeral 6 is a control device for the optical disk device 4. Reference numeral 7 is a display device used for dialogue with an operator, and is provided with a keyboard 8 and a mouse 9 as input means. A display control device 10 controls the display device 7 and controls the keyboard 8 and the mouse 9. Reference numeral 11 is an image scanner for photoelectrically reading a document, 12 is a printer for outputting a document stored in the optical disk 5 as hard copy, and 13 is an input / output control device for controlling input / output of data to / from these.

An example of the procedure of document registration and retrieval work by such a conventional electronic file device will be described. A manuscript of several pages managed as one document is prepared, and the document units are sequentially read by the image scanner 11. The image data of each page output from the image scanner 11 is
File data is sequentially written in a predetermined area (substantial area) of the optical disc 5. The optical disk 5 also has an area (register) for recording document information, and when image data of a plurality of pages belonging to one document is recorded in the actual area of the optical disk 5, at the same time, the document information of the document is stored in the same optical disk 5. Recorded in the register. FIG. 7 shows an example of conventional document information stored in the register 5a of the optical disc 5. An image column and a keyword column are created in this document information. The image column stores the address of each document, the number of pages, the number of sectors used in the optical disk 5, and the document size information. Keyword I of each document
D, the number of keywords, the text length, and the text data are stored. Then, these pieces of information are document 1, document 2, ...
...... Stored for document n and used for later document retrieval, etc. Therefore, if certain document information recorded in the register 5a of the optical disc 5 is read and the actual area is reproduced according to the address of the document information of the corresponding page in it, the image data of the corresponding page can be read, Display the image data on the display device 7,
It can be output as hard copy from the printer 12. In recent years, an optical disk 5 capable of writing and erasing has appeared, and it is becoming widespread in the future, and the application of electronic file devices is also expanding.

[0005]

However, in such a conventional electronic file device, since only the items relating to image data and the items relating to keyword data are stored as document information, the period of use (or In order to delete a document that is no longer needed after the (utilization period), it is necessary for the operator to specify a document from the keyboard 8 or the mouse 9 in the document deletion operation and to input a deletion command for the specified document. This kind of operation is usually done using the operator's spare time, so it takes a lot of time to search for unnecessary documents, even though I want to finish it in a short time. I'm just shunned. Therefore, unnecessary documents may remain undeleted forever and the optical disc 5
There was a problem that the storage area of was occupied unnecessarily.

The present invention has been made in view of the above conventional problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide an electronic file device capable of easily deleting a document whose storage period has expired.

[0007]

To achieve the above object, the present invention stores file data in a storage medium,
A central processing unit is provided with an electronic file device that retrieves and reads documents as needed, and a calendar unit for measuring the date and notifying the central processing unit of the date information is provided and stored by the central processing unit. The gist is that the retention years are created as the document information stored in the medium, and at the time of the deleting operation, the documents whose retention years have passed are retrieved and deleted by the information from the calendar section.

[0008]

When the electronic filing apparatus of the present invention reads a document and stores it in the storage medium, the operator inputs the data of the number of years of storage from the data input section. When creating the document information, the central processing unit adds the matters concerning the image data and the keyword and the matters concerning the number of years of storage into the document information of the file. Then, when a document deletion operation command is input from the data input unit, the central processing unit starts the document deletion processing operation, searches the storage medium for a document whose storage years have passed, and deletes it. Note that this document deletion processing operation may be automatically performed by the central processing unit by interruption processing at a certain fixed time (period).

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the hardware configuration of an embodiment of an electronic file device according to the present invention. In this figure, reference numeral 21 is a central processing unit that performs data processing and control of the entire apparatus, 22 is a main storage unit in which program data necessary for the central processing unit 21 to execute various processing operations is expanded, and 23 is an operating system. It is a magnetic disk device that stores a system and a document registration processing program and is used as a buffer memory. The operating system and the document registration processing program are loaded from the magnetic disk device 23 to the main storage device 22. Two
4 is an optical disk device as a file memory,
Image data is written to and read from the optical disc 25, which is a storage medium. A writable and erasable optical disc is used for the optical disc device 24. In the storage area of the optical disc 25, an area (substantial area) for storing image data and an area (register) for storing the document information D shown in FIG. 2 are defined. An optical disk controller 26 controls the operation of the optical disk device 24.
Reference numeral 27 is a display device used for dialogue with an operator, and is provided with a keyboard 28 and a mouse 29 as input means. A display control device 30 controls the display device 27 and controls the keyboard 28 and the mouse 29. Reference numeral 31 is an image scanner that photoelectrically reads an original, 32 is a printer that outputs a document stored in the optical disk 25 as hard copy, and 33 is an input / output control device that controls the input / output of data with respect to the image scanner 31 and the printer 32. is there. Reference numeral 34 is a calendar section for measuring the date and notifying the central processing unit of the date information.

The operation of the electronic file device having such a configuration will be described below. In this embodiment, when reading a document, the image scanner 31 of the electronic file device is used.
Reads the original under the control of the input / output control device 33 and stores it on the optical disc 25. At this time, the operator who gives the reading instruction inputs the data of the storage years from the keyboard 28 or the mouse 29 which is the data input unit in consideration of how long the input data is utilized.

When the document information D is created, the central processing unit 21 adds to the register of the optical disk 25 the items concerning the image data and the keywords as well as the items concerning the number of years of storage to obtain the document information D of the file. The document information D created in this way is stored in the registry of the optical disc 25. As shown in FIG. 2, the document information D includes an image column, a keyword column, and a storage years column. The data written in the image column and the keyword column are the same as those in the conventional example. For each document, the period from the creation date is, for example,
It is written as "X year X month X day to X year".
These pieces of information are stored for the document 1, the document 2, ..., The document n, and are utilized in the subsequent document search and document deletion. The image data and the document information D read by the image scanner 31 are stored in the central processing unit 21.
Is sent to the optical disk device 24 under the control of. The optical disk device 24 writes the image data and the document information D on the optical disk 25 under the control of the optical disk control device 26.

In the document search operation, the optical disk 25
Read some document information D recorded in the registry of
If the actual area is reproduced according to the address of the document information D of the corresponding page among them, the image data of the corresponding page can be read out, and the image data can be read out.
7 and can be output from the printer 32 as hard copy.

Next, the document deleting operation will be described. Figure 3
Shows schematically the operations between the functional units directly related to the document deletion operation and each. Further, FIG. 4 shows a flowchart showing the procedure of the document deleting operation. When a document deletion operation command is input from the data input unit, the central processing unit 21 starts the document deletion processing operation, and in the processing step (hereinafter simply referred to as step) ST1, the optical disk 25 set in the optical disk device 24 is set to the hardware. Check if the wear is write protected. In this checking operation, if it is determined that the write protection is applied, the document deletion operation is immediately terminated, while if the write protection is not applied, the process proceeds to step ST2 to read one document information D from the optical disc 25, In ST3, it is checked whether this document has been deleted. In this deletion completion check, if it is determined that the document has been deleted, the document deletion operation is terminated, while if it is not deleted, the calendar information is read from the calendar unit 34 in step ST4, and the calendar information and the document information D are saved. The data in the number of years column is compared to search whether the number of years of storage has passed. When the search for the deleted document is completed, it is checked in step ST5 whether or not each document may be deleted, that is, whether or not each document is write-protected.
Then, if the write protection is applied, the deletion processing is ended, and if the deletion is permitted, the document is deleted in step ST7, and then the deletion processing is ended. When a plurality of documents are written in the document information D, after the deletion operation for one document is completed, the other documents are again processed in step ST.
The operation from 1 is repeated. By repeating this document deletion operation, as shown as a change from the memory 1 to the memory 2 in FIG.
The storage period exceeding area A of the memory 1 occupied by unnecessary documents is sorted out, and the empty area B of the memory 2 is increased to expand the image data storage area.

The document deletion processing operation may be automatically performed by the central processing unit by interruption processing at a certain fixed time (period), for example, every one month or two months.

[0015]

As described above, according to the present invention, a calendar unit is provided in an electronic file device in which file data is stored in a storage medium and a central processing unit retrieves and reads out a document as needed. Since the number of years saved has been set in the document information and the information from the calendar section has been used to search for and delete documents that have passed the number of years saved,
Unnecessary documents do not occupy the optical disk forever, and its storage area can be used effectively.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an electronic file device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of document information stored in the optical disc of the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing functional units directly related to a document deleting operation and operations thereof in the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart for explaining the processing procedure of the document deletion operation in the above embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an expansion change of a memory area of an optical disc due to the document deleting operation.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing an example of a conventional electronic file device.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of document information stored in the conventional optical disc.

[Explanation of symbols]

 21 central processing unit 24 optical disk device 25 optical disk 26 optical disk control device 27 display device 28 keyboard 29 mouse 30 display control device 31 image scanner 32 printer 33 input / output control device

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A storage medium for storing file data,
A data input unit for inputting data to a storage medium, a unit for recording data from the storage medium, a unit for displaying contents of the storage medium, a storage medium control unit for controlling the storage medium, and data and instructions stored therein. The memory includes a memory, a central processing unit that executes the instructions of the memory and controls the whole, and a calendar unit that measures the date and informs the central processing unit of the date information. An electronic filing device characterized in that a retention year is created as document information to be stored in a document, and a document whose retention period has expired is deleted according to information from a calendar section during a deletion operation.