JPH11143864A - Method and device for date expression normalization and storage medium for recording date expression normalization program - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To normalize an arbitrary date expression described in a document such as an electronic mail or the like into absolute and perfect date information. SOLUTION: This device is provided with a means 20 for receiving an electronic mail or the like and separating header information and document information from the inputted electronic message, a means 30 for extracting a date expression arbitrarily expressed in this document information, a means 40 for extracting the date information in transmitting a message added to the header information and a means 50 for normalizing the date expression in the document information into the data expression of absolute and perfect form by referring to the date information at the message transmission.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a technique for normalizing a date and time expression described in a document of various messages (electronic messages) such as an electronic mail and a facsimile. The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for normalizing date and time information for converting a date and time expression into a typical date and time and complementing an incomplete date and time expression to a complete date and time expression, and a recording medium on which the date and time expression normalizing program is recorded.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In the prior art, numerals, symbols, "month", "day", etc. are obtained from a document of an electronic message such as electronic mail or facsimile by morphological analysis or pattern matching.
By extracting only a specific character string such as, the date expression is extracted.

[0003]

Not all documents have date and time expressions described in an absolute and complete format. In particular, informal documents often use relative expressions or date and time expressions with some information omitted. When performing automatic extraction of date and time information from such documents, it is not possible to obtain absolute and complete date and time information by extracting the date and time expression using only numbers, symbols, and specific character strings in the document. It is difficult to specify accurate date and time information transmitted by a document.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and it is an object of the present invention to extract absolute and complete date and time information from an arbitrary date and time expression described in a document of an electronic mail or a facsimile message (electronic message). With the goal.

[0005]

According to the present invention, there is provided a method for normalizing a date / time expression, which separates header information and document information from an electronic message, extracts a date / time expression arbitrarily expressed in the document information, and adds the date / time expression to the header information. Extracting the date and time information at the time of message transmission, and normalizing the date and time expression in the document information to an absolute and complete date and time expression with reference to the date and time information at the time of message transmission. And

According to the present invention, there is provided a date / time expression normalizing apparatus for separating header information and document information from an electronic message, extracting a date / time expression arbitrarily expressed in the document information, and adding the date / time expression to the header information. Means for extracting date and time information at the time of message transmission, and a date and time expression in the document information, with reference to the date and time information at the time of message transmission,
Means for normalizing to an absolute and complete date and time expression.

A computer-readable recording medium on which a date / time expression normalization program for normalizing an arbitrary date / time expression described in a document of an electronic message of the present invention is stored. The process of dividing the expression into a date expression and a time expression, and if the date expression is a relative expression, refer to the date and time information at the time of transmission of the document in the header information attached to the document to obtain the absolute date. A process for converting to an expression and a process for complementing the incomplete part by referring to the date of the date and time information at the time of transmission of the document in the header information when the date expression is omitted and incomplete even if the date expression is an absolute expression. If there is no process and no date expression and there is a time expression, a processing process that complements by referring to the date of the date and time information at the time of transmission of the document in the header information, and if the time expression is incomplete, And having a treatment process that complements the absolute representation of the 4-hour.

[0008]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, and is constructed on a so-called computer such as a personal computer. In FIG. 1, a document input unit 10 inputs a message (electronic message) such as an electronic mail or a facsimile. The document classification unit 20 separates and extracts header information and document information (document text) from the input message. In e-mail, facsimile, and other transmitted and received messages, the positions of headers and data are predetermined, so it is easy to separate and extract header information and document information (document text) based on these positions. is there. The date / time expression extraction unit 30 receives the text of the document from the document classification unit 20 and performs the same sentence analysis as in the related art to extract the date / time expression included in the text of the document. The header information reference unit 40 receives the header information from the document classification unit 20, and obtains the date and time information at the time of message transmission included in the header information. The date / time expression normalizing section 50 is a
The date and time expression extracted from the text of the document is compared with the date and time information of the time at which the document was transmitted, obtained by the header reference unit 40, and is described in the text of the document according to the date conversion rule of the date conversion table 60. Obtain a date representation that has been normalized to an absolute and complete form from the date representation that was given. The normalized date and time information is stored in the date and time information storage unit 70,
Used to modify documents.

Next, the processing of the date and time expression normalizing section 50 will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. FIG. 2 shows an example of the processing flow of the date and time expression normalizing section 50, and FIG. 3 shows an example of the date conversion table 60.

The date / time expression normalizing unit 50 divides the date / time expression extracted by the date / time expression extraction unit 30 into a date expression and a time expression (step 101), and determines whether there is a date expression (step 102). If there is a date expression, it is determined whether the date expression is a relative expression (step 1).
03), if it is a relative expression, the header information reference unit 40
With reference to the date and time information at the time of transmission of the document obtained by the above, the document is converted into an absolute date expression by using a date conversion table 60 as shown in FIG.
4). For example, when the date and time expression obtained by the date and time expression extraction unit 30 is a relative date and time expression such as “today”, “today”, “tomorrow”, or “this Saturday”, the header information reference unit 4
0 means that the message was sent on October 10, 1997
If the time is 10:00 on the first day of the month, the date and time conversion table 60 shown in FIG.
1/11997, 10/2/1997, 10/4/199
As shown in FIG. 7, it is converted to an absolute date and time expression.

Even if the extracted date expression is an absolute expression, if it is omitted and incomplete, the header information reference unit 40
(Steps 105 and 10)
6). If there is no date, the header information reference unit 4
The information of the year and month obtained by 0 is complemented. If there is no year, the information of the year obtained by the header information reference unit 40 is complemented. For example, when the date and time expression obtained by the date and time expression extraction unit 30 can only obtain information on a day such as "3 days",
By referring to the transmission date and time of the message obtained by the header information reference unit 40, for example, when the transmission date and time is October 1, 1997, 10:00,
The date is complemented and converted into an absolute expression like 10/3/1997.

On the other hand, if there is no date expression and there is a time expression, the date information obtained by the header information reference section 40 is complemented (step 107). If the time expression is only hour and there is no minute, 00 minutes is complemented (step 1).
08,109). If an afternoon is sometimes included,
When extracted, the time is converted to a 24-hour system by adding 12 hours (steps 110 and 111), otherwise the time is used as it is. For example, when the date and time expression obtained by the date and time expression extraction unit 30 can only obtain time information such as “5:00 pm”, by referring to the transmitted date and time of the message obtained by the header information reference unit 40, For example, if the transmitted date and time is 10:00 on October 1, 1997, it is complemented with an absolute expression such as 10/1/1997 17:00 and converted to a 24-hour system.

FIG. 4 shows a specific example of an electronic mail. In this example, the date and time expression “11:00 tomorrow” in the text of the document matches the date and time information “18 Sep” at the time of message transmission in the header information.
By referring to "1996 15:41:41", it is converted to an absolute expression of "9/19/199611: 00".

Although the embodiment of the present invention has been described above, the date / time expression normalization processing flow shown in FIG. 2 is executed as a date / time expression normalization program in a computer-readable format on a recording medium such as an FD or a CD-ROM. And may be sold as a software recording medium alone.

[0015]

As described above, according to the present invention, when a document including a date and time expression is received by e-mail or facsimile, the date and time information at the time of transmission added to the header information is referred to. It is possible to obtain absolute and complete normalized date and time information from an arbitrary date and time expression in a document.

[Brief description of the drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a processing flow in a date / time expression normalization unit in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a date conversion table in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a specific example of an electronic mail.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Document input part 20 Document division part 30 Date expression extraction part 40 Header information reference part 50 Date expression normalization part 60 Date conversion table 70 Date information storage part

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A method for normalizing an arbitrary date and time expression described in a document of an electronic message, comprising separating header information and document information from the electronic message and arbitrarily expressing the date and time in the document information. An expression is extracted, date and time information at the time of message transmission attached to the header information is extracted, and a date and time expression in the document information is converted into an absolute and complete format by referring to the date and time information at the time of message transmission. A date / time expression normalization method characterized by normalizing to a date / time expression. 2. An apparatus for normalizing an arbitrary date / time expression described in a document of an electronic message, comprising: means for separating header information and document information from the electronic message; Means for extracting the given date and time expression; means for extracting the date and time information at the time of message transmission added to the header information; and referring to the date and time information at the time of message transmission in the document information. Means for normalizing to an absolute and complete format of date and time expression. 3. A computer-readable recording medium recording a date / time expression normalization program for normalizing an arbitrary date / time expression described in a document of an electronic message, wherein the program is described in the document. If the date expression is a relative expression, and if the date expression is a relative expression, refer to the date and time information at the time of transmission of the document in the header information attached to the document,
A processing process for converting to an absolute date expression, and, even if the date expression is an absolute expression, if the omission is incomplete, refer to the date of the date and time information at the time of transmission of the document in the header information to determine the incomplete portion. If there is no date expression and there is a time expression, there is a processing process that complements the header information by referring to the date of the date and time information at the time of transmission of the document. If the time expression is incomplete, A recording process that complements the absolute expression of the time system.