Method and apparatus for retrieving natural language text

• US 20050187964A1
• Filed: 08/05/2004
• Published: 08/25/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 02/24/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Shogakukan Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Shogakukan Incorporated
• Inventors: Watanabe, Ryoji, Nakamura, Takahiro, Aizawa, Hiroshi
• Application Number:
  US10/913,807
• Publication Number:
  US 20050187964A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/334 Query execution G06F16/335 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90344 by using string matching techniques

Abstract

A method for retrieving data from a set of natural language texts, includes the steps of storing the units of the natural language texts and fixed-length codes into a conversion-code table relating each unit uniquely to each code; constructing a coded-text database which stores a set of coded texts produced by converting the units of the natural language texts into the relating fixed-length code using the conversion-code table while maintaining information concerning unit order of the natural language texts; and retrieving coded-texts from the coded-text database using the fixed-length code.

Claims

1. A method for retrieving data from a set of natural language texts, the method comprising the steps of:

storing the units of the natural language texts and fixed-length codes into a conversion-code table relating each unit uniquely to each code;

constructing a coded-text database which stores a set of coded texts produced by converting the units of the natural language texts into the relating fixed-length code using the conversion-code table while maintaining information concerning unit order of the natural language texts; and

retrieving coded-texts from the coded-text database using the fixed-length code.

2. A method for retrieval according to claim 1, further comprising a step of:

converting the retrieved coded-texts into natural language texts using the conversion-code table while maintaining the information concerning unit order of the coded-texts.

3. A method for retrieval according to claim 1, further comprising a step of:

obtaining the locators of the natural language texts corresponds to the retrieved coded-texts using an index table in which stores the locators of the natural language texts.

4. A method for retrieval according to claim 1, wherein the natural language text is expressed in a standardized data format including secondary data, and the unit includes the secondary data.

5. An apparatus for retrieving data from a set of natural language texts, the apparatus comprising:

a conversion-code table which stores the units of the natural language texts and fixed-length codes relating each unit uniquely to each code;

a coded-text database which stores a set of coded texts produced by converting the units of the natural language texts into the relating fixed-length code using the conversion-code table while maintaining information concerning unit order of the natural language texts; and

a retrieval part which retrieves coded-texts from the coded-text database using the fixed-length code.

6. An apparatus for retrieval according to claim 5, further comprising:

a decoding part which converts the retrieved coded-text into natural language texts using the conversion-code table while maintaining information concerning unit order of the coded-texts.

7. An apparatus for retrieval according to claim 5, further comprising:

an index table which stores the locaters of the natural language texts corresponds to the coded texts; and

the retrieval part which obtains the locaters of the natural language texts corresponds to the retrieved coded-texts using the index table.

8. An apparatus for retrieval according to claim 5, further comprising:

an encoding part which converts the natural language texts into the coded-texts using the conversion-code table while maintaining information concerning unit order of the natural language texts.

9. An apparatus for retrieval according to claim 5, wherein the natural language text is expressed in a standardized data format including secondary data, and the unit includes the secondary data.