Configurable pattern recognition and filtering tool

• US 20020040357A1
• Filed: 01/09/2001
• Published: 04/04/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 01/05/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Jim Miller
• Original Assignee: Jim Miller
• Inventors: Miller, Jim
• Granted Patent: US 6,687,694 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 706/20
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/94 Hardware or software architectures specially adapted for image or video understanding
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access

Abstract

A user-definable pattern searching apparatus is presented, composed of a graphical user interface to capture user pattern definitions and create a Pgraph of nodes defining the search and a traversal engine to use the Pgraph to search an arbitrary input stream of character patterns.

Claims

1. A character stream search apparatus using a user-defined plurality of input streams, each of said streams processed one at a time, said character stream search apparatus (apparatus) for determining whether or not said plurality of input streams used as search objects exist in a character stream undergoing a search operation, said character stream comprising a plurality of characters, said apparatus comprising:

software that uses a single user-defined Pgraph defining a from-to relationship between a plurality of nodes, said Pgraph possessing a start node, said start node being the first pattern to be searched for, said apparatus traversing said Pgraph as defined by said from-to relationships,

said nodes each comprising a single pattern, each of said nodes having associated with it a user-defined tag, each of said nodes having associated with it zero or more user-defined actions,

each of said actions determining what processing is to be performed by said software when said node patterns are recognized in the character stream.

2. An apparatus as in claim 1 where said apparatus resumes scanning said character stream at said start node when said Pgraph possesses a node possessing no from-to relationship link pointing to another node.

3. An apparatus as in claim 2 where said pattern attached to each of said nodes is comprised of a sequence of subpatterns, each of said subpatterns defined by a value set, and a minimum and a maximum number of occurrences of said values contained in said value set.

4. An apparatus as in claim 3 where said apparatus handles ambiguity at the last subpattern of any of said patterns by looking ahead in either an as soon as possible (ASAP) or an as late as possible (ALAP) mode.

5. An apparatus as in claim 4 where said ASAP mode means moving from the current pattern to the next pattern immediately when a subpattern contained in said next pattern is detected and where said ALAP mode means if the next pattern detected is the next subpattern contained in the current node in said Pgraph, then retain control in the current node.

6. An apparatus as in claim 5 where said apparatus can change the start node based upon user input, when said apparatus encounters a given pattern in the character stream.

7. An apparatus as in claim 6 where said apparatus can recognize a null node, said null node a pattern of zero length.