JPH08194706A - Structural sentence generation device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To improve the operability of the generation of a structural sentence by displaying in parallel structure elements corresponding to document data and displaying a rule on logic structure on the same display screen. CONSTITUTION: A controller 17 reads the control blocks of element structure data one by one from a structure element storage device 14, and reads the rule of the logic constitution elements in corresponding logic structure element data from a logic structure storage device 15 with the structure element name of the structure element which is read as a key. Then, a display method is obtained from a relation condition corresponding to the respective structure elements by referring to a display method table, and a flag and a display character string, which show the display method, line type information of a frame surrounding element hierarchy display and line type information of a display line related to the element are transferred to a display device 12. The display device 12 displays data in an element name display area. The controller 17 reads a character string corresponding to the respective structure elements from a sentence data storage device 13 and transfers it to the display device 12. The display device 12 arranges sentence data in a sentence data display area in parallel to the structure element.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an apparatus for creating a structured document, and more particularly to an apparatus for creating a structured document which facilitates editing of a structured document.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A structured document is a document created according to the rules for its logical structure. In order to create or edit a structured document in accordance with such a structured rule, how to display the structured rule together with the target text data is an issue in the structured text creation operation.

For example, in the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-189864, rules for a logical structure and sentences corresponding to the logical structure are separately displayed. In this case, when a new structural element is inserted, the operator cannot know what structural element can be input without referring to the structural rule provided separately.

Further, the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-148754 is to display the headings of documents arranged in a tree structure and display the documents corresponding to the selected headings based on the headings. is there. However, the structure of a sentence generally has not only a simple tree structure but also a rule about the number of times of appearance of a structural element such as a logical structural element that can appear repeatedly and a selectable structural element.

[0005]

As described above, according to the prior art, when creating a structured document, it is not possible to create text data in a form corresponding to the structuring rules, or according to the structuring rules. It cannot be said that it is guiding the operator who creates the text data.

It is an object of the present invention to display a structured element and text data in parallel and to guide a user according to a structured rule to improve the operability.

[0007]

A structured document is a collection of character strings delimited by identifiers called tags. A series of tags has a hierarchical structure (tree structure), and the arrangement order of each tag is predetermined. In some cases, tags that must appear once or more (mandatory tags) or tags that appear 0 or more times (optional tags)
In some cases, the number of appearances is specified. In this way, the tags are arranged according to the rules for the logical structure such as the tree structure, the arrangement order, and the number of appearances.

A set of rules for expressing the logical structure of such a tag is called a document type declaration. In the present invention, a logical structure element is obtained by converting the document type declaration into a data format that can be easily processed internally. Call it data. The logical structure element data represents a tree structure by connecting logical structure elements according to their arrangement order. Further, the logical structure element data has information on the number of appearances.
Further, among the logical structure element data, the expression of the structure element appearing in the actual structured document in the internal data format is called element structure data in the present invention. Element structure data is
This is a tree structure in which structural elements appearing as tags in individual structured documents are connected according to their arrangement order. For example, the optional structuring element appears in the logical structuring element data, but does not always appear in the corresponding structuring element data. The structure element in the element structure data stores a pointer pointing to the corresponding sentence data if there is corresponding sentence data.

The structured-sentence creating apparatus of the present invention sequentially reads the structure elements included in the element structure data and the corresponding sentence data, searches for the structure elements included in the logical structure element data, and searches the corresponding structure elements. Information about the number of appearances is taken out, the structure elements included in the element structure data are displayed in order according to the arrangement order, the sentence data corresponding to each displayed structure element is displayed in parallel with the corresponding structure element, and Display information about the number of appearances.

Further, the structured-sentence creating apparatus of the present invention displays a candidate of a structuring element which can be inserted before and after the structuring element corresponding to the position of the cursor positioned on the text data on the display screen.

[0011]

According to the present invention, the structural elements of the structured document are displayed in accordance with the arrangement rule, and if there is the text data corresponding to each structural element, it is displayed in parallel with the corresponding structural element, and the text data is edited. Even if is expanded or contracted, the structuring elements parallel to this are also followed. When displaying the structural element, information about the number of times that the structural element can appear is displayed. Further, the structure element that can be inserted before and after the structure element corresponding to the cursor position is displayed. In this way, since the rules regarding the logical structure are reflected and displayed on the same display screen as the text data, the operability of creating a structured text is improved.

[0012]

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

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the structured-text creating apparatus of this embodiment. The control device 17 is a main body of an information processing device such as an electronic computer, a workstation, and a personal computer, and reads the text data and its logical structure by executing a program stored in the storage device 16 and displays them on the display device 12. Is a processing means for supporting the editing of the displayed text data by the operator. The storage device 16 is a main storage device connected to the control device 17, and has areas of the sentence data storage device 13, the structural element storage device 14, and the logical structure storage device 15, respectively.
The text data storage device 13 is an area for storing structured text data, and the logical structure storage device 15 is an area for storing rules (logical structure element data) about the logical structure of a text related to this text data, structural element storage. The device 14 is an area for storing element structure data in which the rule about the logical structure is applied to actual text data. Secondary storage device 1
An external storage device 8 is connected to the control device 17, and is a storage device for storing a structured document which is the basis of the sentence data and a sentence type declaration which is the basis of the logical structure element data. The display device 12 is a device that displays text data and its structural elements on its display screen. The input device 11 is an input device such as a keyboard and a mouse for editing text data based on the information displayed on the display screen of the display device 12.

FIG. 2 shows the logical structure element data 23 and the element structure data 22 respectively stored in the logical structure storage device 15, the structural element storage device 14 and the sentence data storage device 13.
3 is a diagram showing an example of the data format of text data 21. FIG.

The logical structure element data 23 is obtained by converting a document type declaration described later into internal data which can be easily processed, and shows rules of the logical structure element. The logical structuring element data 23 has each structuring element as one control block,
A plurality of structural elements are connected in the form of a tree structure in the order of appearance of structural elements via pointers. Since the text structure is expressed by logical rules, the structural element is called a logical structural element. . The structure element name 210 of each logical structure element indicates its name, the element arrangement rule 211 indicates the appearance rule of that logical structure element, and? Indicates that the structural element appears 0 or 1 times, and "required" indicates that it is repeated 1 or more times. Lower element address 212
Stores the pointer of the lower structure element, if any. The parallel element address 213 stores the pointer of the structural element if it is arranged in parallel.

The element structure data 22 is obtained by connecting the structure elements corresponding to the actual text data according to the rules of the logical structure element data 23 in a tree structure in the order of appearance of the structure elements via pointers. One structural element is represented by one control block. Structure element name 2 of each structure element
4 indicates the name of the structural element, and the upper structure address 25
Stores the pointer of the upper structure element if there is one, and the parallel structure address 26 stores the pointer of the structure element arranged in parallel. The text address 27 is a pointer that points to the storage area of the text data corresponding to the structural element. The lower structure address 28 stores the pointer of a structure element to be arranged below the structure element. The edit flag 29 is a flag indicating whether or not the text data corresponding to the structural element has been edited. Note that the "distributor" structural element existing in the logical structural element data 23 does not appear in the actual text data and therefore does not appear in the element structural data 22.

The text data 21 is actual text data, and each element is linked to the element structure data 22 by a text address 27.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a display screen displayed on the display device 12. The element name display area 31 is an area in which the sentence structure of the sentence being created is displayed graphically.
The text data display area 32 is an area for displaying the text data being edited corresponding to each structural element name. In the element name display area 31, a structural element name 33, an element hierarchy display 34 indicating whether or not each structural element has a lower element, and an element relation display line 35 indicating a relation between each structural element are displayed. The element display area 36 is an area for displaying the structural element name 33 of the structural element displayed at the current cursor position. The scroll bar 37 is for scrolling the display screen by tracking the scroll box 38 with a pointing device such as a mouse. By this scroll, the element name display area 31
The structural element name 33 in and the corresponding text data in the text data display area 32 are displayed in association with each other.

FIGS. 4 and 5 are diagrams showing examples of structured document data according to ISO8879. FIG. 4 is called a document type declaration and shows the rules of the logical structure element. For example, as a substructure element of "minutes", "distribution destination", "meeting name",
There are "creation date", ..., etc., there are "agenda" and "above" as substructure elements of "report content", and "subject title", "agenda" or " It indicates that there are bullet points 1 "and" conclusions ". ? , +
And * respectively indicate that the structural element is repeated 0 or 1 time, 0 or more times and 1 or more times.

FIG. 5 shows an example of actual text data corresponding to the document type declaration of FIG. In the figure, <minutes>, <meeting name>, </ meeting name>, etc. are called tags. The document type declaration and the text data are stored in the secondary storage device 18.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart showing the flow of processing for reading text data and a text type declaration. Controller 17
Reads the document type declaration shown in FIG. 4 from the secondary storage device 18 (step 61) and expands the logical structure of the sentence on the logical structure storage device 15 (step 62). Controller 17
Analyzes the document type declaration on the logical structure storage device 15 and uses the same logical structure storage device 15 in the format of the logical structure element data 23.
(Step 63). Next, the control device 17 reads the text data shown in FIG. 5 (step 64), and checks whether or not the rule is described in the logical structure element data 23 (step 65). If the text data matches the logical structure element data 23, the logical structure element data 23
Applying the above rule to actual text data, element structure data 2
It is converted to the format 2 and stored in the structuring element storage device 14 (step 67). The text data is stored in the text data storage device 13 in the form of the text data 21 so as to be linked from each structural element (step 68). When a mismatch with the logical structure element data 23 occurs, all the subsequent data are stored in the text data storage device 13 in the format of the text data 21 (step 66). The inconsistency occurs here when, for example, the text data does not have an essential tag. If it is not the end of the text data (YES in step 69), the process returns to step 64 and the above process is repeated. If it is the end of the sentence data, the process is ended.

FIG. 7 is a display method table showing the display method according to the condition of the structural element, which is secured in the storage device 16. For example, if a structural element has subordinate elements, it is displayed with the § symbol added. Also, the display method differs depending on the number of appearances of the structural element. The display method also differs depending on the presence or absence of the arrangement order of the structuring elements. The difference in the number of appearances is expressed by changing the display method of the frame surrounding the element hierarchy display 34, and the order of the array is expressed by changing the display method of the element relation display line 35.

FIG. 8 is a flow chart showing the flow of processing of the control device 17 for displaying text data on the display device 12. The control device 17 reads the control blocks of the element structure data 22 one by one from the structure element storage device 14 (step 81), and the structure element name 2 of the read structure element.
4 is used as a key to read the rule of the logical structure element in the corresponding logical structure element data 23 from the logical structure storage device 15 (step 82). Next, referring to the display method table shown in FIG. 7, the display method is obtained from the relational condition 71 corresponding to each structural element (step 83), and the flag and the display character string indicating the display method on the display device 12 and the element hierarchy display 34 are displayed. The line type information of the frame enclosing and the line type information of the element related display line 35 are transferred (step 85). The display device 12 displays the data in the element name display area 31 shown in FIG. 3 according to the display method 72 (step 86). Next, the control device 17 reads out the character string corresponding to each structural element from the text data storage device 13 and transfers it to the display device 12. The display device 12 arranges the sentence data in the sentence data display area 32 in parallel with the structuring element (step 87). If there is a structural element to be displayed (YES in step 88), the process returns to step 81 and the above process is repeated.

FIG. 9 is a diagram for explaining examples of structural element candidates that can be further input corresponding to the current cursor position on the display screen, by way of example. Since the cursor position 92 is located at the structural element of “Meeting”, “Meeting” is displayed in the element display area 36. Also, insertable element display area 91
Indicates that it is possible to repeatedly insert "agenda" or "bullets" after the current "agenda". If there is a structure element that can be inserted before the current cursor position 92, this is also displayed as a candidate in the insertable element display area 91 in the order of appearance.

FIG. 10 is a flow chart showing the flow of processing of the control device 17 which displays the structural element which can be input in correspondence with the cursor position 92. When the control device 17 receives the information about the cursor operation from the input device 11 (step 101), it changes the cursor position of the text data on the text data storage device 13 (step 10).
2). When the cursor movement is completed, the element structure data 22 in the structure element storage device 14 is searched based on the address of the text data in order to know the position of the structure element where the text data exists (step 103). When the structural element corresponding to the text data is found, the control device 17 searches the logical structural element data 23 in the logical structure storage device 15 using the structural element name 210 as a key and inserts it before and after the structural element from the element arrangement rule 211. Possible structural elements are obtained (step 104) and displayed in the insertable element display area 91 on the display screen (step 105). The control device 17 prohibits positioning of the cursor in the text data display area 32 where the cursor is displayed and the character string of the corresponding text data cannot be input.

FIG. 11 is a flow chart showing the flow of text data editing processing performed by the control device 17. When the control device 17 receives an instruction to edit text data (insert, delete, change character strings, etc.) from the input device 11 (step 1
11) In response to this, this is reflected in the text data 21 in the text data storage device 13 to update the text data 21 (step 112). After updating the text data, the structural element storage device 1 is based on the address of the text data.
The element structure data 22 on 4 is searched, and the edit flag 29 of the corresponding structure element is turned on (step 113). Next, the character string data for re-display is transferred to the display device 12 in order to re-display one of the structural elements and the corresponding text data (step 114). Next, it is checked whether the edit flag 29 of the structural element corresponding to the displayed text data is on or off (step 115), and the structural element name of the structural element for which the edit flag 29 is on is highlighted in bold. (Step 116). If the edit flag 29 is off, the structuring element name is displayed in normal characters (step 117). If there is a structural element to be redisplayed (YES in step 118), the process returns to step 114 and the above processing is repeated. When the operator designates the structure element name in the insertable element display area 91 via the input device 11, the control device 17 traces the structure element of the element structure data 22 with the pointer and sets the new structure at the correct arrangement position of the structure element. Create and insert one control block for the element. Text address 2
A pointer 7 pointing to an area in the text data 21 for storing a character string to be inserted is stored. For example, by pointing to "Meeting" in the insertable element display area 91 shown in FIG. 9, "Meeting" is displayed at the corresponding position in the element name display area 31.
The structural element name 33 of is inserted. The same applies to “bullet 1”. When the scroll box 38 is operated by the input device 11, the control device 1 responds to the operation.
7 is an element name display area 31 and a sentence data display area 3
The structural elements in 2 and the corresponding text data are displayed in parallel while being linked.

[0027]

As described above, the text data and the corresponding structural elements are displayed in parallel, and the rules for the logical structure are displayed on the same display screen as the text data to guide the operator. Therefore, the operability of creating a structured sentence is improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a structured text creation device according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a data format of main data by an example.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a display screen.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a document type declaration showing the structure of a sentence.

5 is a diagram showing an example of text data corresponding to the structure of FIG.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a processing flow of a control device 17 for reading data.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of a table for setting a display method of structural elements.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a processing flow of a control device 17 for displaying data.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a display example of cursor positions and inputtable structural elements.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing a processing flow of a control device 17 which detects a cursor position to determine and display a structural element that can be input.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing a processing flow of the control device 17 when updating text data.

[Explanation of symbols]

12 ... Display device, 17 ... Control device, 21 ...
Text data, 22 ... Element structure data, 23 ... Logical structure element data, 31 ... Element name display area, 32
... Sentence data display area, 33 ... Structural element name,
91 ... Insertable element display area, 92 ... Cursor position

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A logical structure of a structured document is expressed by a group of a plurality of possible structural elements, each structural element is expressed by one control block, and the number of appearances of the structural element expressed by the control block is expressed. Information is stored, and the logical structure of the structured document is connected to the control blocks according to a predetermined arrangement order as logical structure element data, and each structure of the logical structure element data that actually appears in the structured document. An element is represented by one control block, and if there is text data corresponding to the control block, a pointer pointing to an area in which the text data is stored is stored, and the control block of the actually appearing structural element is stored according to the arrangement order. Concatenated to form element structure data, storage means for storing the logical structure element data, the element structure data and the sentence data, and a structure element included in the element structure data. Display means for sequentially displaying the elements according to the arrangement order, displaying the sentence data corresponding to each displayed structural element in parallel with the corresponding structural element, and displaying information regarding the number of appearances; Of the structural element included in the element structural data and the corresponding sentence data are sequentially read, the structural element included in the logical structural element data is searched, and the number of appearances in the control block included in the corresponding structural element An apparatus for creating a structured text, comprising: processing means for taking out information and transferring information about a structure element included in the element structure data, the text data and the number of appearances to the display means. 2. The display means further comprises an area for displaying a candidate of a structuring element that can be inserted with respect to a structuring element corresponding to the position of the cursor positioned in the text data, and the processing means indicates the current position of the cursor. The corresponding structural element is detected, the candidate of the insertable structural element is determined based on the number of appearances of the corresponding structural element in the logical structural element data and the preceding and following structural elements, and the candidate is displayed by the display means. The structured sentence creating device according to claim 1, wherein 3. A control block of a structure element included in the element structure data further has an edit flag indicating whether or not the corresponding text data is edited, and the processing means performs the edit operation. 2. The structured-text creating apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an instruction to highlight information about a structural element corresponding to the written text data.