Bidirectional domain names

• US 20030110021A1
• Filed: 06/26/2001
• Published: 06/12/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 06/26/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Atkin, Steven Edward
• Granted Patent: US 7,996,207 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/454 Multi-language systems; Localisation; Internationalisation

Abstract

A two-phase system and method for determining a display order of characters in a multilingual domain name. First, inferencing resolves the direction of indeterminate characters, such as the fall stop or “dot”, hyphen-minus, Arabic numeral, and European numeral, during which each character is assigned a strong direction left or right. Second, reordering takes the fully resolved characters and generates a display ordering for them. The inferencing phase is accomplished in several passes including assigning Arabic and Hebrew letters right-to-left direction, and assigning left-to-right direction to full stops and other alphabetic characters. Next, directions of digits are resolved by assigning all Arabic numerals a right-to-left direction; and assigning all European numerals left-to-right direction, unless the European numeral is surrounded by right-to-left characters. A final set of passes resolves the directions of hyphen-minus characters by assigning all hyphen-minus characters left-to-right, unless the hyphen-minus is surrounded by characters whose direction is right-to-left.

Claims

1. A method for determining a display sequence for a domain name, said domain name having a plurality of labels separated by a label delimiter character, each label comprising at least one character, said domain name comprising a stream of characters from a first character to a last character, said method comprising the steps of:

performing inferencing through resolving the direction of indeterminate characters by assigning a strong direction left or right to each indeterminate character; and

reordering said characters into a display order using the fully resolved characters previously inferenced.

2. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said step of inferencing comprises the steps of:

first, assigning a right-to-left direction to Arabic and Hebrew letters;

second, assigning a left-to-right direction to fill stop characters and other alphabetic characters;

third, resolving the directions of digits; and

fourth, resolving the directions of hyphen-minus characters.

3. The method as set forth in claim 2 wherein said step of resolving the directions of digits comprises the steps of:

assigning a right-to-left direction to all Arabic numerals; and

assigning a left-to-right direction to all European numerals, unless a European numeral is surrounded by right-to-left characters such as Arabic or Hebrew letters, in which case it is assigned a right-to-left direction.

4. The method as set forth in claim 2 wherein said step of resolving the directions of hyphen-minus characters comprises:

assigning a left-to-right direction to all hyphen-minus characters which are not surrounded by characters whose direction is right-to-left; and

assigning a right-to-left direction to all hyphen-minus characters which are surrounded by characters whose direction is right-to-left.

5. A computer readable medium encoded with computer executable software for determining a display sequence for a domain name, said domain name having a plurality of labels separated by a label delimiter character, each label comprising at least one character, said domain name comprising a stream of characters from a first character to a last character, said software when executed causing a computer to perform the steps of:

performing inferencing through resolving the direction of indeterminate characters by assigning a strong direction left or right to each indeterminate character; and

reordering said characters into a display order using the fully resolved characters previously inference.

6. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 5 wherein said software for inferencing comprises software for performing the steps of:

first, assigning a right-to-left direction to Arabic and Hebrew letters;

second, assigning a left-to-right direction to full stop characters and other alphabetic characters;

third, resolving the directions of digits; and

fourth, resolving the directions of hyphen-minus characters.

7. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 6 wherein said software for resolving the directions of digits comprises software for performing the steps of:

assigning a right-to-left direction to all Arabic numerals; and

assigning a left-to-right direction to all European numerals, unless a European numeral is surrounded by right-to-left characters such as Arabic or Hebrew letters, in which case it is assigned a right-to-left direction.

8. The computer readable medium as set forth in claim 6 wherein said software for resolving the directions of hyphen-minus characters comprises software for performing the steps of:

assigning a left-to-right direction to all hyphen-minus characters which are not surrounded by characters whose direction is right-to-left; and

assigning a right-to-left direction to all hyphen-minus characters which are surrounded by characters whose direction is right-to-left.

9. A system for determining a display sequence for characters of a domain name, said domain name having a plurality of labels separated by a label delimiter character, each label comprising at least one character, said domain name comprising a stream of characters from a first character to a last character, said system comprising:

an inferencer adapted resolve the direction of indeterminate characters by assigning a strong direction left or right to each indeterminate character; and

a character reorderer adapted to re-sequence said characters into a display order using the fully resolved characters previously inference.

10. The system as set forth in claim 9 wherein said inferencer comprises:

a first direction assignor for assigning a right-to-left direction to Arabic and Hebrew letters;

a second direction assignor for assigning a left-to-right direction to full stop characters and other alphabetic characters;

a third direction assignor for resolving the directions of digits; and

a fourth direction assignor for resolving the directions of hyphen-minus characters.

11. The system as set forth in claim 10 wherein said third direction assignor comprises:

a right-to-left direction assignor for all Arabic numerals, and for all European numerals which are surrounded by right-to-left characters such as Arabic and Hebrew letters; and

a left-to-right direction assignor for all European numerals which are not surrounded by right-to-left characters such as Arabic or Hebrew letters.

12. The system as set forth in claim 10 wherein said fourth direction assignor comprises:

a left-to-right direction assignor for all hyphen-minus characters which are not surrounded by characters whose direction is right-to-left; and

a right-to-left direction assignor for all hyphen-minus characters which are surrounded by characters whose direction is right-to-left.