System and method for user edit merging with preservation of unrepresented data

• US 20060271567A1
• Filed: 05/24/2005
• Published: 11/30/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/24/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Jain, Rupali, Hamid, Zeeshan, Nielson, Mark L.
• Granted Patent: US 7,370,060 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/123 Storage facilities

Abstract

A system and method for preserving unrepresented data in a document exchanged between applications. Applications handling the document, or computing devices executing the applications may have different capabilities with respect to a particular feature of the document such as certain formatting properties, footnotes, graphical attributes, and the like. Data associated with such features, unrepresented data, is preserved by employing a tree structure for the document and flagging nodes associated with unrepresented data. Flagged nodes are ignored, but preserved, when the document is handled by an application or computing device with different capabilities. When the document is handled again by an application or computing device that is capable of processing those features, the unrepresented data is made available along with any modifications made to the document during the previous handling.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for preserving unrepresented data in a document exchanged between a first application and a second application, comprising:

parsing the document to generate a tree representation of the document, wherein a root of the tree corresponds to the document and nodes of the tree correspond to one of elements and properties of the document;

associating a size with each node of the tree, wherein a size of a leaf node corresponding to an element is determined by a number of document units associated with the element, and a size of a branch node is determined by an aggregate of leaf node sizes underneath the branch node;

flagging a node when the node corresponds to unrepresented data; and

observing the flagged node when exchanging the document between the first application and the second application such that unrepresented data is substantially maintained.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein flagging the node corresponding to unrepresented data comprises assigning a size value of zero to the node.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein flagging the node corresponding to unrepresented data comprises associating a predetermined character with the node.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the document unit includes at least one of a letter, a character, a word, a sentence, a paragraph, a table, and a cell.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising editing the nodes of the tree in response to an edit to the document.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein editing includes at least one of inserting new document units, deleting existing document units, and modifying existing document units.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein the edits to the document and unrepresented data are merged by arranging the edited nodes and nodes corresponding to unrepresented data within the tree structure such that nodes corresponding to unrepresented data are preserved.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein exchanging the document between the first application and the second application includes at least one of modifying the document and saving the document.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the unrepresented data includes at least one of formatting information, a footnote, a comment, and a non-text symbol within a substantially text document.

10. A computer-implemented method for handling a document with unrepresented data, exchanged between a first application and a second application, comprising:

parsing a tree representation of the document beginning with a root node, wherein the root node includes accumulated size information corresponding to a sum of sizes of all child nodes within the tree;

ignoring each node with a size value of zero, wherein a size value of a leaf node corresponding to an element is determined by a number of document units associated with the element, and a size value of a branch node is determined by an aggregate of leaf node size values underneath the branch node;

accumulating the size values as the tree is parsed; and

completing the parsing when the accumulated size values are substantially equal to the root node size value.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein the child nodes of the tree correspond to one of elements and properties of the document.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein the nodes with the size value of zero include at least one of unrepresented data and property information.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, further comprising:

editing the document by performing at least one of inserting new document units, deleting existing document units, and modifying existing document units in the document.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 13, further comprising:

performing at least one of saving and transmitting the document, wherein each node with the size value of zero is observed such that unrepresented data associated with each node with the size value of zero is substantially maintained.

15. A computer-readable medium having computer instructions for preserving unrepresented data in a document exchanged between applications, the instructions comprising:

generating a tree representation of the document, wherein a root node corresponds to the document and each node of the tree corresponds to one of elements and properties of the document;

associating a size with each node of the tree, wherein a size of a node corresponding to an element is determined by a number of document units associated with the element, and a size of a branch node is determined by an aggregate of node sizes underneath the branch node;

assigning a predetermined size to a node when the node corresponds to unrepresented data; and

observing the nodes with the predetermined size when handling the document by one of the applications such that unrepresented data is substantially maintained.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the predetermined size is zero.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein handling the document by one of the applications with limited capability includes ignoring the nodes with the predetermined size during at least one of inserting new document units, deleting existing document units, and modifying existing document units in the document.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the unrepresented data includes at least one of formatting information, a footnote, a comment, and a non-text symbol within a substantially text document.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein one of the applications and another of the applications are executed in computing devices that have distinct capabilities of displaying information associated with the nodes with the predetermined size.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein one of the applications and another of the applications have distinct capabilities of handling the nodes with the predetermined size.