Interactively rearranging spatially related data

• US 4,435,777 A
• Filed: 05/18/1981
• Issued: 03/06/1984
• Est. Priority Date: 05/18/1981
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: McCaskill, Rex A., McInroy, John W., Waldo, Paul D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Wise, Edward J.
• Application Number:
  US06/264,387
• Time in Patent Office: 1,023 Days
• Field of Search: 364/200 MS File, 364/900 MS File, 364/300, 340/709, 340/723, 340/724, 340/750
• US Class Current: 715/205
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging

Abstract

An improved method is disclosed for assisting the operator of an interactive text processing system in entering instructional data which defines to the system changes to stored spatially related data. The method involves the operator identifying to the system the task to be accomplished and the name and the location of the source file in the system, displaying to the operator on the screen of the display device the header portion of the file, which defines the fields or column names, and converting sequences of operator keystrokes representing conventional text editing operations on selected fields of the displayed header to instructions for use by the system in processing records of the file.

Claims

1. An improved method for assisting an operator of an interactive text processing system in interactively entering instructional data into said system which defines to said system desired changes to be made to each spatially related vector formatted data record stored in an existing file which includes a header record having a plurality of named fields, the location of which in said header record establishes the spatial relationship of data in each said record, comprising the steps of:

(a) displaying to said operator said header record as a horizontal row of said named fields, each of which is disposed at a location in said row determined in accordance with said vector format;

(b) displaying to said operator a cursor disposed at a predetermined position in said horizontal row;

(c) moving said cursor to a position in said horizontal row which corresponds to a field location involved in one of said changes;

(d) initiating an edit operation corresponding to said one of said changes after the cursor is moved to said position in said horizontal row which corresponds to said one of said changes;

(e) storing in said system said instructional data defining said edit operation performed in step (d) by said operator and said position in said header of said cursor when said edit operation was initiated; and

(f) repeating steps (c), (d) and (e) for each desired said change to permit said system to subsequently edit each of said data records in said existing file in accordance with said stored instructional data.

2. The method recited in claim 1 in which said step of initiating an edit operation comprises said operator interactively entering instructional data into said system which defines a conventional move text operation from said one position in said row where said cursor is positioned when said edit operation is initiated to another position in said row.

3. The method recited in claim 1 in which said step of initiating an edit operation comprises said operator interactively entering instructional data into said system which defines a conventional delete text operation.

4. The method recited in claim 1 in which said system includes a keyboard and said instructional data is entered into said system by an operator interacting with said keyboard.

5. An interactive text processing system including a display device, a keyboard and a microprocessor which processes both conventional text data and spatially related data in which the spatially related data is stored in said system as a plurality of vector formatted data records along with a header record having a plurality of named fields, said records being converted from said vector format to conventional text stream data for displaying on said device, an improved method for changing each spatially related vector formatted data record stored in an existing file comprising the steps of:

(a) displaying on said device to the operator said header record of said existing file as a horizontal row of named fields;

(b) displaying a cursor disposed at a predetermined position in said horizontal row;

(c) changing the order of fields in said horizontal row by performing a conventional text edit move operation involving interactive operator directed cursor movements which specify the movement of one of said fields from its current position to a new position; and

(d) storing in said system at locations available to said microprocessor the instructional data reflecting each said move operation including the location in said header involved therewith to permit said microprocessor to modify the vector information of each said data record in said existing file in accordance with the stored instructional data.

6. The method set forth in claim 5 further including the step of

(e) deleting at least one of said field names in said horizontal row by performing a conventional text editing delete operation involving other interactive operator directed cursor movements identifying a field to be deleted.

7. The method set forth in claim 6 further including the step of

(f) displaying each said data record in said existing file with the changes in the data record specified by steps (c) and (e).