Methods and system for using web browser to search large collections of documents

• US 6,055,538 A
• Filed: 12/22/1997
• Issued: 04/25/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett Packard Company (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Thelen, Gregory W., Applin, John R., Kessenich, John M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Amsbury, Wayne
• Assistant Examiner(s): PARDO, THUY N
• Application Number:
  US08/995,676
• Time in Patent Office: 855 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/2, 707/6, 707/101, 707/102, 707/4, 707/100, 370/60, 370/392, 711/216
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9532 Query formulation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/972 Access to data in other repository systems, e.g. legacy data or dynamic Web page generation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

A system for rapidly and easily searching large collections of documents using standard web browser programs as the user interface. The present invention parses a collection of text documents to identify symbols therein and builds a database file which identifies the file and line locations of each symbol identified. The database file is constructed to permit rapid searching for symbols to permit interactive use of the present invention as a search tool. A database client process interacts with the web browser via standard CGI techniques to convert browser commands and queries into appropriate server process requests. A server process receives such requests and manipulates the database files in response to the requests. Query results returned to the client process are then reformatted by the client process to return a document with hypertext links in place of search keys located in the database (e.g., an HTML page). The system of the present invention thereby provides for rapid searching of large collections of text documents which is not coupled to a specific toolset used to create any one of the documents and which uses a simple and well-known user interface, namely: web browsers.

Claims

1. A database file structure for locating symbols within a text document comprising:

a hash table comprising a plurality of buckets wherein each of said plurality of buckets points to a variable length list of symbol entries for which the associated symbol hashes to a hash value corresponding to the bucket;

a variable length list of at least one symbol entry, distinct from said plurality of buckets, pointed to by at least one of said plurality of buckets wherein each of said at least one symbol entry points to a variable length list of file index entries each corresponding to a text document in which a corresponding symbol is found;

a variable length list of at least one file index entry, distinct from said plurality of buckets and distinct from said variable length list of at least one symbol entry, pointed to by one of said at least one symbol entry wherein each of said at least one file index entry points to a variable length list of line number entries each corresponding to a line number at which said corresponding symbol is located in the corresponding text document; and

a variable length list of at least one line number entry, distinct from said plurality of buckets and distinct from said variable length list of at least one symbol entry and distinct from said variable length list of at least one file index entry, pointed to by one of said at least one file index entries wherein each of said at least one line number entry provides a location in a text document at which the corresponding symbol is found in the corresponding text document.

2. The database file structure of claim 1 wherein all integer values used as pointers and locations are compressed such that:

values in the range 0 through 127 use a single byte of storage;

values in the range 128 through 16,383 use two bytes of storage;

values in the range 16,384 through 2,097,151 use three bytes of storage; and

values higher than 2,097,152 use at least four bytes of storage.