GENERATING A SYNONYM DICTIONARY REPRESENTING A MAPPING OF ELEMENTS IN DIFFERENT DATA MODELS

• US 20070083503A1
• Filed: 11/21/2005
• Published: 04/12/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/07/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Saha, Rakesh, Gupta, Manoj, Sengupta, Aninda
• Granted Patent: US 7,600,186 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/374 Thesaurus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/84 Mapping; Conversion
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/86 Mapping to a database

Abstract

Additional synonym pairs are inferred from a pair of schema elements (of different schemas) mapped by a user, and the inferred pairs are added to a dictionary. According to one aspect of the present invention, a mapped pair is inferred as a synonym pair if the elements of the mapped pair cannot be mapped according to a program logic otherwise. According to one more aspect of the present invention, the parents of the mapped elements are also inferred as synonym pairs if sufficient peer (to the mapped elements) elements are already mapped or considered synonyms.

Claims

1. A method of updating a synonym dictionary containing a set of synonym pairs, said method comprising:

receiving data representing the mapping of a first element in a first schema to a second element in a second schema;

inferring an additional synonym pair to be added to said set of synonym pairs based on said mapping of said first element to said second element; and

adding said additional synonym pair to said synonym dictionary.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein a user maps said first element to said second element and said data is received after said user maps said first element to said second element.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said additional synonym pair comprises said first element and said second element.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein said inferring infers that said first element is a synonym of said second element only if said first element cannot be mapped to said second element according to a program logic.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein said program logic receives as inputs whether said first element needs to be identical to said second element for mapping or similarity is sufficient.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said similarity comprises one or more of ignoring case and having a common sub-string.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said additional synonym pair comprises a third element of said first schema and a fourth element of said second schema, wherein said third element and said fourth element are respective parents of said first element and said second element.

8. A computer readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions causing a server to update a synonym dictionary containing a set of synonym pairs, wherein execution of said one or more sequences of instructions by one or more processors contained in said server causes said one or more processors to perform the actions of:

receiving data representing the mapping of a first element in a first schema to a second element in a second schema;

inferring an additional synonym pair to be added to said set of synonym pairs based on said mapping of said first element to said second element; and

adding said additional synonym pair to said synonym dictionary.

9. The computer readable medium of claim 8, wherein a user maps said first element to said second element and said data is received after said user maps said first element to said second element.

10. The computer readable medium of claim 9, wherein said additional synonym pair comprises said first element and said second element.

11. The computer readable medium of claim 10, wherein said inferring infers that said first element is a synonym of said second element only if said first element cannot be mapped to said second element according to a program logic.

12. The computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein said program logic receives as inputs whether said first element needs to be identical to said second element for mapping or similarity is sufficient.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein said similarity comprises one or more of ignoring case and having a common sub-string.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 8, wherein said additional synonym pair comprises a third element of said first schema and a fourth element of said second schema, wherein said third element and said fourth element are respective parents of said first element and said second element.

15. A computer system updating a synonym dictionary containing a set of synonym pairs, said computer system comprising:

means for receiving data representing the mapping of a first element in a first schema to a second element in a second schema;

means for inferring an additional synonym pair to be added to said set of synonym pairs based on said mapping of said first element to said second element; and

means for adding said additional synonym pair to said synonym dictionary.