End user query facility
First Claim
1. An end user query facility for accessing a database having a plurality of database files formed using a database model, comprising:
- a knowledge base which stores a set of linkages of the database model;
a semantics extractor for reading said database model and extracting the semantics of said database model, and which stores in said knowledge base said set of linkages;
an information scout for interfacing with a user to obtain from the user a designation of the information to be extracted from said database;
an inference engine which, based upon said designation of information to be extracted from said database, identifies one or more of said database files which contain the desired information and searches said knowledge base to determine the linkage(s) connecting said one or more identified files; and
a program generator which accesses the linkages obtained by said inference engine and generates a program to extract said desired information from said database.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An end user query technology is taught which is capable of automatically understanding the database model and guiding the user to scout for the desired information, thereby increasing productivity and ease of information access. The user is freed from the need to understanding the database model, with the end user query facility of this invention quickly guiding the user to acquire the information. This is made possible by the end user query facility of this invention first recapturing the application semantics from the existing database model to provide a set of derived semantics. The derived semantics are then used by the end user query facility to intelligently guide the user to scout for the desired information in the database. In addition, the derived semantics can be easily updated by the end user query facility when the database model is changed.
51 Citations
9 Claims
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1. An end user query facility for accessing a database having a plurality of database files formed using a database model, comprising:
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a knowledge base which stores a set of linkages of the database model; a semantics extractor for reading said database model and extracting the semantics of said database model, and which stores in said knowledge base said set of linkages; an information scout for interfacing with a user to obtain from the user a designation of the information to be extracted from said database; an inference engine which, based upon said designation of information to be extracted from said database, identifies one or more of said database files which contain the desired information and searches said knowledge base to determine the linkage(s) connecting said one or more identified files; and a program generator which accesses the linkages obtained by said inference engine and generates a program to extract said desired information from said database. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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Specification