CONTEXT SENSITIVE TERM EXPANSION WITH DYNAMIC TERM EXPANSION

• US 20100010980A1
• Filed: 09/22/2009
• Published: 01/14/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/22/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Dettinger, Richard D., Tenner, Jeffrey W., Herbeck, David G., Will, Eric W.
• Granted Patent: US 8,122,048 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: N/A
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2428 Query predicate definition using graphical user interfaces, including menus and forms G06F16/2423 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2452 Query translation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3338 Query expansion
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation

Abstract

Methods, articles of manufacture and systems for searching collections of data using context sensitive expanded term searching using dynamic term expansion are provided. The collection of data may be a relational database, text document, or any other type of searchable collection of data. In either case, a query including a search condition based on a specified search term may be modified to include additional conditions based on a set of expanded (e.g., conceptually-related) search terms dynamically linked with the query. For some embodiments, a user may be given the ability to choose whether the set of expanded search terms are dynamically linked with the query or not.

Claims

1. A computer-readable storage medium containing a program for searching fields of a data repository using dynamic term expansion which, when executed, performs operations comprising:

providing a first interface allowing a user to build and save a query containing at least one condition for searching at least one field of the data repository, wherein the at least one condition includes at least one base search term;

providing a second interface allowing the user to specify a set of expanded search terms to be associated with the at least one base search term and further allowing the user to specify whether the set of expanded search terms should be dynamically linked with the query via a pointer used to identify a source of the set of expanded search terms; and

providing a runtime component configured to retrieve a saved query and modify the saved query to contain one or more conditions including a specified set of expanded search terms retrieved using the pointer.

2. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein, if the user has specified the set of expanded search terms should be dynamically linked with the query, saving the query comprises saving the query with information associated with the pointer.

3. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 2, wherein the runtime component is further configured to recreate the pointer based on the information associated with the pointer.

4. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 2, wherein the information associated with the pointer comprises a uniform resource locator (URL).

5. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise modifying the set of expanded search terms subsequent to saving the query and prior to obtaining the set of expanded terms using the pointer.

6. A method for searching fields of a data repository using dynamic term expansion, the method comprising:

providing a first interface allowing a user to build and save a query containing at least one condition for searching at least one field of the data repository, wherein the at least one condition includes at least one base search term;

providing a second interface allowing the user to specify a set of expanded search terms to be associated with the at least one base search term and further allowing the user to specify whether the set of expanded search terms should be dynamically linked with the query via a pointer used to identify a source of the set of expanded search terms;

retrieving a query that was previously built and saved via the first interface; and

modifying the query to contain one or more conditions including a specified set of expanded search terms specified via the second interface and retrieved using the pointer.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the query was previously saved with information associated with the pointer because the user specified that the set of expanded search terms should be dynamically linked with the query.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising recreating the pointer based on the information associated with the pointer.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the information associated with the pointer comprises a uniform resource locator (URL).

10. A method for searching fields of a data repository using dynamic term expansion, the method comprising:

receiving input to compose a query containing at least one condition for searching at least one field of the data repository, wherein the at least one condition includes at least one base search term;

receiving input specifying a set of expanded search terms to be associated with the at least one base search term;

receiving input specifying whether the set of expanded search terms should be dynamically linked with the query via a pointer used to identify a source of the set of expanded search terms;

saving the query;

retrieving the saved query;

retrieving the set of expanded terms using the pointer;

modifying the retrieved query to contain one or more conditions including the set of expanded search terms retrieved using the pointer.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising modifying the set of expanded search terms subsequent to saving the query and prior to retrieving the set of expanded terms using the pointer.