JPH06276226A - Host device for personal computer communication - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To automatically delete a file in which data whose term runs out are stored in the data file of a host device for personal computer communication. CONSTITUTION:At the time of data registration from a terminal equipment 2, the term of validity of the data is also registered. Then, the file whose term runs out is detected and automatically deleted by a delete processing means 18 activated synchronously with the power source applying timing of a host device 1 for personal computer communication or the present date updating timing of a calender means. Also, in the file whose term of validity is not registered, a fixed period is added to the present date, and registered as a default value. Thus, a personnel or work required for file management can be unnecessitated, and the valid utilization of a storage device can be attained. Also, the delete of the file can be prevented from being forgotten by automatically deleting the file. Moreover, an access to the information whose term runs out can be prevented from being erroneously performed by a user.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention is used for personal computer communication in which a large number of user terminals access via communication lines and users exchange information with each other. In particular, it relates to a technique for automatically deleting files whose expiration date has expired.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A so-called electronic bulletin board of a personal computer communication system, that is, a mechanism for writing and reading by a large number of users, is currently used in various situations. It is widely used by local governments to communicate with the general public.

In particular, it is often used to publicize various events or to introduce new products. Also, when used in a company, the distribution of pre-meeting materials and communication of various business operations can be performed by a mechanism called this electronic bulletin board.

[0004]

However, such information usually has a time limit. That is, when it is used to publicize various events or to introduce a new product, it becomes unnecessary when the event ends or the campaign period of the new product ends. In addition, the distribution of the materials for the meeting will be unnecessary when the meeting is over, and the communication of various business operations will be unnecessary after a certain period.

By the way, a mechanism for writing and reading by a large number of people, so-called electronic bulletin board, is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-2.
This is realized by storing information in the storage device of the host computer, as described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 19742. Therefore, the information that can be stored is limited by the capacity of the storage device, so that the capacity of the storage device is secured by deleting the time-limited information.

However, conventionally, the system administrator or the operator who wrote each piece of information manages the deadline for each file, and deletes the file each time the deadline arrives. In order to improve the efficiency of file deletion, various tools for file management are prepared, but the operator must judge and instruct which file to delete based on the title and contents, and it takes a lot of time. I needed it.

The present invention has been made against such a background, and it is not necessary for the administrator or the user to manage the expiration date of the file, and the work for deleting is also unnecessary, and the host device for personal computer communication. The purpose is to provide.

[0008]

According to the present invention, there is provided an information processing device connected to a communication line and accessible by a large number of users via this communication line. The information processing device has an unspecified destination of information. The electronic bulletin board and / or the electronic mail box in which the destination of the information is specified is set, and the host device for personal computer communication is provided with the storage means for accumulating the bulletin board information or the mailbox information related to the electronic bulletin board and / or the electronic mail box. Is.

Here, a feature of the present invention is that the bulletin board information or the mailbox information accumulated in the storage means is accumulated in correspondence with the deadline date, and the calendar means for generating date information and the accumulated information. It is provided with means for collating the expiration date of the information with the date information to detect information that has passed the expiration date, and means for deleting the information detected by the detecting means from the storage means.

It is desirable to provide means for executing the deleting means when the power of the apparatus is turned on. Further, the deleting means may be provided with a means for executing the updating of the date information generated by the calendar means.

It is desirable to provide means for giving a default value as a deadline date to the information to which a deadline date is not added when the information is stored in the storage means.

One or more of the electronic bulletin boards may be set, and at least a part of the electronic bulletin boards may be collectively given the same deadline date corresponding to the electronic bulletin boards.

Before the expiration date, a means for prohibiting the deletion of the information by a third party may be provided.

[0014]

[Operation] The output of the calendar means for outputting the current date,
By comparing the expiration date information stored with the file name, the file to be deleted is set,
The file whose expiration date has come is deleted from the file storage means in synchronization with the power-on timing of the personal computer communication host device or the date update timing of the calendar means.

As a result, the expired file is automatically deleted without forgetting to delete it, without any work by a special administrator or user. Therefore, the storage device in which the file is stored can be effectively used. Further, it is possible to prevent the user from mistakenly accessing the information after the expiration date.

[0016]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The configuration of an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The present invention is provided with a communication control unit 6 as an information processing device which is connected to the communication line 3 and communicates with a large number of terminal devices 2 via the communication line 3, and the destination is unspecified or specified by a large number. An electronic bulletin board 8 for controlling transmission / reception of certain information to / from the large number of terminal devices 2 using the communication control unit 6, and / or a large number of terminal devices using the communication control unit 6 for information in which a destination is specified. 2 and a storage unit 14 as a storage unit for storing information to be transmitted / received to / from the electronic bulletin board 8 and / or the terminal device 2 related to the electronic mailbox 10. It is the host device 1 for personal computer communication that it has.

Here, the feature of the present invention is that the information stored in the storage unit 14 is stored in correspondence with the deadline date, and the date generation unit 12 as the calendar means for generating date information and the storage unit. Date detection unit 16 as means for detecting the information that has passed the expiration date by collating the expiration date of the information with the date information, and deleting as means for deleting the information detected by the date detection unit 16 from the storage unit 14. And a processing unit 18.

Here, the personal computer communication host device 1 is used.
In the embodiment of the present invention, it is specifically configured as one CPU and its peripheral device, and more specifically, it is realized by a so-called personal computer, and the communication control unit 6, the electronic mail box 10, and the Electronic bulletin board 8
And the like are realized by a program on a RAM (not shown) and a communication control LSI (not shown), and the storage means 14 is realized by a hard disk device. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and equivalent functions are provided. Multiple C
It can be easily realized by those skilled in the art by combining a PU and a logic circuit.

Next, the information registration procedure in the embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. Information is managed in units of message files 21. FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a procedure for registering a message file (hereinafter simply referred to as a file). A plurality of users access the personal computer communication host device 1 through the terminal device 2, read / write files in the personal computer communication host device 1, and exchange various data. Here, a file registration procedure will be described. When the terminal device 2 accesses the personal computer communication host device 1 for writing information, the personal computer communication host device 1 searches for an empty area and permits writing to the terminal device 2 if there is an empty area. . When the terminal device 2 transmits data to the personal computer communication host device 1, the data is sent to the bulletin board 8
Alternatively, it is stored as a file 21 in the storage unit 14 via the electronic mail box 10 (S1). From the personal computer communication host device 1, a message of "expiration date?" Prompting the input of the expiration date to be given to this file is returned (S
2). Here, when the user inputs a date (S3), the input date is sent to the electronic bulletin board 8 or the electronic mailbox 10 together with the file name, and the time limit provided in the storage unit 14 under the control thereof. This file name and its deadline are written in the table 15.

In particular, when this file is a file related to the electronic bulletin board 8, the posted title name is first input from the terminal device 2, and then the data to be written as a file is input. At this time, if the input title name has an expiration date, it is determined that the expiration date of the file that stores the data to be input subsequently is the same as the expiration date assigned to this posting title name. Unless it is desired to set the expiration date to a different expiration date than the other files in the same display title name, exceptionally, the expiration date input is unnecessary (S6).

If the user does not input the deadline date, registration is made with two months after the current date as the default deadline date in the embodiment of the present invention, unless the input of the deadline date is unnecessary. Yes (S5).

Next, the default value setting procedure when the user does not input the deadline date will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the default value setting procedure. CPU 6 when the expiration date for the file storing the input data is not input
Reads the current date from the date generator 12 (S2) and calculates the date two months later based on it (S2). This date is written in the deadline table 15 from the electronic bulletin board 8 or the electronic mailbox 10 as a default value of the file in which the input data is stored (S3).

The posting title can be registered only by the posting title even if there is no information to be stored, or the posting title registration can be started when the file is registered. In either case, the date can be registered in the deadline table.

Next, the deadline table 15 will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the deadline table 15. The deadline table 15 is a table provided in the storage unit 14 for managing stored files. In the deadline table 15, the names of files or bulletin board titles stored in the storage unit 14 are written together with their expiration date information.

When the name is the posted title name, "1" is written in the bulletin board flag F2 to distinguish it from the file in the electronic mail box 10.

The individual message file names included in the bulletin board title name are not included in the deadline table, but are represented by the bulletin board title name to save the capacity. For the files in the bulletin board title name, file management for each bulletin board title is separately realized by file tree structure management. Note that the tree structure management described above is widely performed in commonly used operating systems, so it will not be reached deeply here.

Next, the file deletion processing procedure in the embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the file deletion processing procedure. In the embodiment of the present invention, the file deletion timing is the power-on time. The power-on detection unit 20 shown in FIG. 1 detects the power-on. When the power is turned on, the power-on detection unit 20 transfers the detection signal to the CPU 6, and the CPU 6 starts the deletion process.

The date detection unit 16 refers to the time limit table 15 of the storage unit 14 to detect a post title name or a file name whose time limit has already expired (S1). If there are no expired files, the following processing is not performed (S
2). Based on this detection result, the date detection unit 16 creates the deletion table 17 (S3).

The deletion processing section 18 deletes the files included in the table according to the deletion table 17 (S
4). When the file is deleted, the deadline table 15 is updated only with the file name whose deadline has not expired (S5).

Next, the deletion table 17 will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the deletion table 17. The deletion table 17 is a table used by the deletion processing unit 18 to refer to a file to be deleted, and the date detection unit 1
6 is set in the temporary storage circuit (RAM).

The file name for which the deletion table bulletin board flag F3 is "1" is the posted title name, and the file names written before that are files included in the posted contents having this posted title name. . All the files included in the posted contents are deleted together with the posted title name on the date given to the title name.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the power-on is detected and used as the file deletion timing. However, the timing at which the current date of the date generator 12 is updated may be set as the file deletion timing.

A special password may be set for external access related to file deletion, and means for prohibiting deletion of the information by a third party may be provided before the expiration date.

[0035]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is not necessary for the administrator or the user to manage the deadline of the file, and the work for deleting the file is unnecessary, and the file is automatically deleted. I will never forget.

Therefore, the storage device in which the file is stored can be effectively used. Further, it is possible to prevent the user from mistakenly accessing the information after the expiration date.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a file registration procedure.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a default value setting procedure.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a deadline table.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a file deletion processing procedure.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a deletion table.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 personal computer communication host device 2 terminal device 3 communication line 5 network 6 communication control unit 8 electronic bulletin board 10 electronic mail box 12 date generation unit 14 storage unit 15 deadline table 16 date detection unit 17 deletion table 18 deletion processing unit 20 power-on detection Part 21 Message file F2 Bulletin board flag F3 Delete table Bulletin board flag

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. An information bulletin board connected to a communication line and accessible by a large number of users via this communication line, wherein the information bulletin board has an electronic bulletin board and / or an information bulletin board whose information destination is unspecified. In a personal computer communication host device having an e-mail box with a specified destination set and having a storage means for storing information relating to the electronic bulletin board and / or the electronic mailbox, the information stored in the storage means is a deadline date. And calendar means for generating date information, which is stored in correspondence with, and means for detecting information after the deadline date by collating the deadline date of the stored information with the date information, and detecting by this detecting means. And a means for deleting the stored information from the storage means. 2. The personal computer communication host device according to claim 1, further comprising means for automatically executing the deleting means when the power source of the apparatus is turned on. 3. The host device for personal computer communication according to claim 1, further comprising means for automatically executing the deleting means when the date information generated by the calendar means is updated. 4. The personal computer communication host device according to claim 1, further comprising means for giving a default value as a deadline date to information to which a deadline date has not been added when the information is stored in the storage means. 5. The host device for personal computer communication according to claim 1, wherein one or more electronic bulletin boards are set, and at least a part of the electronic bulletin boards are collectively given the same deadline date corresponding to the electronic bulletin boards. 6. The host device for personal computer communication according to claim 1, further comprising means for prohibiting deletion of the information by a third party before the expiration date.