SEARCHING DOCUMENT OBJECT MODEL ELEMENTS BY ATTRIBUTE ORDER PRIORITY

• US 20110252040A1
• Filed: 04/07/2010
• Published: 10/13/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/07/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Lu, Weiqi, Li, Fangsheng
• Granted Patent: US 9,460,232 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/748
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3323 using document space presentation or visualization, e.g. category, hierarchy or range presentation and selection
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3334 Selection or weighting of terms from queries, including natural language queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/81 Indexing, e.g. XML tags; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention provide systems and methods for searching for elements of a document based on an order priority of attributes of a query expression. According to one embodiment, a method of searching a plurality of objects of a document, such as elements of a DOM document, can comprise generating a query expression with attributes related to a target object of the document. For example, the expression can comprise an XPath expression. The attributes of the query expression can be parsed into one or more attribute groups, each comprising at least one attribute, based on logical operators between the attributes. Each one or more attribute groups of each expression can be weighted and a search can be performed for the target object in the document based on the weighted one or more attribute groups of the query expression.

Claims

1. A method for searching a plurality of objects of a document, the method comprising:

generating a query expression for searching the document, the query expression comprising one or more attributes related to attributes of a target object of the document;

parsing attributes of the query expression into one or more attribute groups based on logical operators between the attributes, each attribute group comprising at least one attribute;

weighting each one or more attribute group based on an order priority of the attributes; and

searching for the target object in the document based on the weighted one or more attribute groups.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein searching for the target object in the document based on the weighted one or more attribute groups of the query expression comprises:

comparing each object of the document to the parsed query expression;

scoring each object based on the weight of each attribute group matching attributes of the object; and

selecting the target object based on the scoring of each object.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein parsing attributes of the query expression into one or more attribute groups comprises generating a tree structure representing the attributes and logical operators of the query expression.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein weighting each one or more attribute group comprises:

identifying leaf nodes of the tree structure, each leaf node representing an attribute group; and

weighting each leaf node.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein weighting each leaf node comprises assigning a weight exponentially based on an index of the leaf within the expression.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein weighting each one or more attribute group further comprises:

identifying a parent node for each leaf node; and

weighting the parent node.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein weighting the parent node comprises summing a weight of each child node of the parent node.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein weighting each one or more attribute group further comprises:

determining whether an expression represented by the parent node evaluates as false; and

in response to determining the expression represented by the parent node evaluates as false, scoring each node of a sub-tree represented by the parent node and child leaf nodes of the parent as zero.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein selecting the target object based on the scoring of object comprises selecting an object with a highest score.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the document comprises a Document Object Model (DOM) document and the query expression comprises an XPath expression.

11. A system comprising:

a processor; and

a memory communicatively coupled with and readable by the processor, the memory having stored therein a set of instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to search elements of a Document Object Model (DOM) document by generating an XPath expression for searching the DOM document, the XPath expression comprising one or more attributes related to attributes of a target element of the DOM document, parsing attributes of the XPath expression into one or more attribute groups based on logical operators between the attributes, each attribute group comprising at least one attribute, weighting each one or more attribute groups of the XPath expression, and searching for the target element in the DOM document based on the weighted one or more attribute groups.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein searching for the target element in the DOM document based on the weighted one or more attribute groups of the XPath expression comprises:

comparing each element of the document to the parsed XPath expression;

scoring each element based on the weight of each attribute group matching attributes of the element; and

selecting the target element based on the scoring of each element.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein parsing attributes of each XPath expression into one or more attribute groups comprises generating a tree structure representing the attributes and logical operators of the XPath expression.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein weighting each one or more attribute group comprises:

identifying leaf nodes of the tree structure, each leaf node representing an attribute group; and

weighting each leaf node, wherein weighting each leaf node comprises assigning a weight exponentially based on an index of the leaf within the expression.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein weighting each one or more attribute group further comprises:

identifying a parent node for each leaf node; and

weighting the parent node, wherein weighting the parent node comprises summing a weight of each child node of the parent node.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein weighting each one or more attribute group further comprises:

determining whether an expression represented by the parent node evaluates as false; and

in response to determining the expression represented by the parent node evaluates as false, scoring each node of a sub-tree represented by the parent node and child leaf nodes of the parent as zero.

17. A machine-readable medium having stored therein a series of instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to search elements of a Document Object Model (DOM) document by:

receiving an XPath expression for searching the DOM document, the XPath expression comprising one or more attributes related to a target element of the DOM document;

parsing attributes of the XPath expression into one or more attribute groups based on logical operators between the attributes, each attribute group comprising at least one attribute;

weighting each one or more attribute groups based on an order priority of the attributes; and

searching for the target element in the DOM document based on the weighted one or more attribute groups of the XPath expression.

18. The machine-readable medium of claim 17, wherein searching for the target element in the DOM document based on the weighted one or more attribute groups of the XPath expression comprises:

comparing each element of the DOM document to the parsed XPath expression;

scoring each element based on the weight of each attribute group matching attributes of the element; and

selecting the target element based on the scoring of each element.

19. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, wherein parsing attributes of the XPath expression into one or more attribute groups comprises generating a tree structure representing the attributes and logical operators of the XPath expression.

20. The machine-readable medium of claim 19, wherein weighting each one or more attribute group comprises:

identifying leaf nodes of the tree structure, each leaf node representing an attribute group;

weighting each leaf node, wherein weighting each leaf node comprises assigning a weight exponentially based on an index of the leaf within the expression;

identifying a parent node for each leaf node;

weighting the parent node, wherein weighting the parent node comprises summing a weight of each child node of the parent node

determining whether an expression represented by the parent node evaluates as false; and

in response to determining the expression represented by the parent node evaluates as false, scoring each node of a sub-tree represented by the parent node and child leaf nodes of the parent as zero.