Intelligent data query builder

• US 20050131889A1
• Filed: 12/11/2003
• Published: 06/16/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 12/11/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: X Corp. (f/k/a Twitter, Inc.) (X Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bennett, Valerie M., Jain, Mohit, Fridrich, George L.
• Granted Patent: US 7,711,742 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2428 Query predicate definition using graphical user interfaces, including menus and forms G06F16/2423 takes precedence

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed for programmatically determining one or more logical choices to be offered to users as conditions of a data query (e.g., for searching a content source), and enabling extensions to already-established queries to be programmatically created. A number of different aspects are described, and include programmatically determining all query conditions as well as allowing a user to specify (or request programmatic determination of) further conditions.

Claims

1. A method of programmatically building queries, comprising steps of:

programmatically identifying, for a content source, at least one element thereof as candidate query parameters; and

providing the identified parameters for use in carrying out a query of the content source.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the programmatically identifying step further comprises the step of consulting a lookup table using information regarding the content source.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the programmatically identifying step further comprises the step of consulting a lookup table using information regarding a user for whom the query will be carried out.

4. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

enabling a user to request addition of parameters for the query; and

programmatically identifying at least one query extension parameter for the query, responsive to a request from the user; and

wherein the providing step further comprises also providing the at least one programmatically-identified query extension parameter.

5. A method of programmatically building queries, comprising steps of:

enabling a user to identify elements of a content source as query parameters;

programmatically identifying, for at least one of the query parameters, values to use as candidate values in a query of the content source; and

providing the identified values and the query parameters for use in carrying out a query of the content source.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the programmatically identifying step further comprises the step of consulting a lookup table using information regarding the content source.

7. The method according to claim 5, wherein the programmatically identifying step further comprises the step of consulting a lookup table using information regarding a user for whom the query will be carried out.

8. A method of programmatically building queries, comprising steps of:

programmatically identifying, for at least one query parameter to be used when querying a content source, one or more candidate query qualifiers; and

providing the identified qualifiers and the query parameters for use in carrying out a query of the content source.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the programmatically identifying step further comprises the step of consulting a lookup table using information regarding the content source.

10. The method according to claim 8, wherein the programmatically identifying step further comprises the step of consulting a lookup table using information regarding a user for whom the query will be carried out.

11. A method of programmatically building queries, comprising steps of:

obtaining a set of one or more query parameters for querying a content source; and

programmatically identifying, for the obtained query parameters, one or more candidate extensions thereto which are usable for querying the content source.

12. The method according to claim 11, wherein the obtaining step further comprises obtaining the set as input from a user.

13. The method according to claim 11, wherein the obtaining step further comprises programmatically determining the set.

14. The method according to claim 11, further comprising the steps of:

enabling a user to request addition of parameters for the query; and

programmatically identifying at least one query extension parameter for the query, responsive to a request from the user.

15. The method according to claim 11, wherein the programmatically identifying step further comprises the step of consulting a lookup table using information regarding the content source.

16. The method according to claim 11, wherein the programmatically identifying step further comprises the step of consulting a lookup table using one or more of the obtained query parameters.

17. The method according to claim 11, wherein the programmatically identifying step further comprises the step of consulting a lookup table using information regarding a user for whom the query will be carried out.

18. The method according to claim 11, further comprising the step of:

providing the obtained query parameters and the identified extensions for querying the content source.

19. The method according to claim 11, further comprising the step of:

enabling a user to select one or more of the programmatically-identified candidate extensions for querying the content source.

20. A system for programmatically building queries, comprising:

means for obtaining a set of one or more query parameters for querying a content source; and

means for programmatically identifying, for the obtained query parameters, one or more candidate extensions thereto which are usable for querying the content source.

21. A computer program product for programmatically building queries, the computer program product embodied on one or more computer-readable media and comprising:

computer-readable program code means for obtaining a set of one or more query parameters for querying a content source; and

computer-readable program code means for programmatically identifying, for the obtained query parameters, one or more candidate extensions thereto which are usable for querying the content source.