Systems and Methods For Representing Text

• US 20110219014A1
• Filed: 03/05/2010
• Published: 09/08/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/05/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Starcounter AB
• Original Assignee: Starcounter AB
• Inventors: Wester, Joachim
• Granted Patent: US 8,825,675 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/752
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90344 by using string matching techniques
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/917 Text

Abstract

The disclosure herein describes systems and methods for representing text. For example, one disclosed embodiment is a method including the steps of receiving a plurality of text strings, each text string comprising at least one character, wherein the at least one character has a representation comprising a first part and a second part; receiving a request to sort the plurality of text strings; and sorting the plurality of text strings based on first parts of the characters of the text strings. In another embodiment, a computer-readable medium comprises program code for causing a processor to execute such a method.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium comprising program code for causing a processor to execute a method, program code comprising:

program code for receiving a plurality of text strings, each text string comprising at least one character, wherein the at least one character has a representation comprising a first part and a second part;

program code for receiving a request to sort the plurality of text strings; and

program code for sorting the plurality of text strings based on the first parts of the at least one characters of the plurality of text strings.

2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first part comprises an equality part and the second part comprises a differentiator part.

3. The computer-readable medium of claim 2, wherein the equality part indicates a membership within a class of characters and a sort priority of the class of characters, and the differentiator part represents a particular character of the class of characters.

4. The computer-readable medium of claim 2, wherein the equality part is based at least in part on ordering information and the differentiator part is based at least in part on characteristic information.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the characteristic information comprises case information or diacritical information.

6. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first part and the second part each have a fixed length.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first part and the second part each have a variable length.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first part has a fixed length and the second part has a variable length.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the program code for sorting the plurality of text strings comprises program code for storing first parts of characters of a first text string of the plurality of text strings in a first register and first parts of characters of a second text string of the plurality of text strings in a second register and program code for comparing the first register with the second register.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the first register and the second register are CPU registers.

11. A computer-readable medium comprising program code for causing a processor to execute a method, program code comprising:

program code for receiving a first text string comprising characters in a first representation;

program code for generating a second text string comprising characters in a second representation, wherein the second representation represents each character in two parts comprising a first part and a second part;

program code for storing the second text string in a record in a database;

program code for receiving a request for the first text string;

program code for retrieving the second text string from the record in the database in response to the request;

program code for generating the first text string from the second text string based at least in part on the first parts and the second parts of the characters in the second text string; and

program code for outputting the first text string.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the first part comprises an equality part and the second part comprises a differentiator part.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 12, wherein the equality part is based at least in part on ordering information and the differentiator part is based at least in part on characteristic information.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the characteristic information comprises case information or diacritical information.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the first part and the second part each have a fixed length.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the first part and the second part each have a variable length.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the first part has a fixed length and the second part has a variable length.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 11, further comprising program code for sorting a plurality of records each having a text string in the second representation, the plurality of records comprising the record, wherein a sort order is based on the first part of the text strings of the plurality of records.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the second parts of the letters of the second text string are stored in a first register and wherein second parts of letters of a third text string are stored in a second register, and wherein sorting a plurality of records comprises comparing the value of the first register against the value of the second register.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the first register and the second register are CPU registers.

21. A computer-readable medium comprising program code for causing a processor to execute a method, program code comprising:

program code for receiving a first character set in a first representation, the first character set comprising a plurality of characters;

program code for receiving an ordering of the plurality of characters;

program code for receiving characteristic information describing characteristics of characters or classes of characters;

program code for determining a second representation for each of the plurality of characters, each second representation having a first part and a second part, the second representations of the plurality of characters based on the ordering and the characteristic information; and

program code for generating a second character set based at least in part on the second representations of the plurality of characters.

22. The computer-readable medium of claim 21, wherein the first part comprises an equality part and the second part comprises a differentiator part.

23. The computer-readable medium of claim 22, wherein the equality part is based at least in part on the ordering information and the differentiator part is based at least in part on the characteristic information.

24. The computer-readable medium of claim 21, wherein the first part and the second part each have a fixed length.

25. The computer-readable medium of claim 21, wherein the first part and the second part each have a variable length.

26. The computer-readable medium of claim 21, wherein the first part has a fixed length and the second part has a variable length.

27. The computer-readable medium of claim 21, wherein the characteristic information comprises case information or diacritical information.

28. The computer-readable medium of claim 21, further comprising program code for receiving frequency information, and wherein the generating a second character set is further based at least in part on the frequency information.

29. A method comprising:

receiving a plurality of text strings, each text string comprising at least one character, wherein the at least one character has a representation comprising a first part and a second part;

receiving a request to sort the plurality of text strings; and

sorting the plurality of text strings based on the first parts of the at least one characters of the plurality of text strings.

30. A method comprising:

receiving a first text string comprising characters in a first representation;

generating a second text string comprising characters in a second representation, wherein the second representation represents each character in two parts comprising a first part and a second part;

storing the second text string in a record in a database;

receiving a request for the first text string;

retrieving the second text string from the record in the database in response to the request;

generating the first text string from the second text string based at least in part on the first parts and the second parts of the characters in the second text string; and

outputting the first text string.

31. A method, comprising:

receiving a first character set in a first representation, the first character set comprising a plurality of characters;

receiving an ordering of the plurality of characters;

receiving characteristic information describing characteristics of characters or classes of characters;

determining a second representation for each of the plurality of characters, each second representation having a first part and a second part, the second representations of the plurality of characters based on the ordering and the characteristic information; and

generating a second character set based at least in part on the second representations of the plurality of characters.