System and method using metalanguage keywords to generate charts

• US 6,223,189 B1
• Filed: 12/31/1997
• Issued: 04/24/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/1997
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Yonts, Richard, Steffens, Susan H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Feild, Joseph H.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kindred, Alford W.
• Application Number:
  US09/001,853
• Time in Patent Office: 1,210 Days
• Field of Search: 707/502, 707/503, 707/501, 707/500, 707/515, 707/514, 707/528-531, 707/542, 707/101-102, 345/418, 345/430-431, 345/440, 345/441-443, 345/467, 345/468, 345/116, 345/133, 345/140, 345/150, 709/200-201, 709/203
• US Class Current: 715/209
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/151 Transformation

Abstract

A charting metalanguage for uniquely defining a chart to be generated by a computer. The charting metalanguage comprises a plurality of keywords and subkeywords that define the components of the chart. A keyword is preceded by an indicator such as a slash symbol and describes a major characteristic of the chart such as the type of chart, the type of font to be used or the title of the chart. An optional subkeyword follows the keyword. A text and/or data string may follow the subkeyword and/or be positioned between the keyword and the subkeyword.

Claims

1. A charting metalanguage for defining a chart comprising:

one or more tokens;

at least one primary keyword that specifies a characteristic of a chart, each primary keyword being preceded by at least one token, the primary keyword being selected from the group consisting of domaintitle, rangetitle, legendtitle, title, and subtitle; and

a text string following at least one primary keyword, wherein the primary keyword domaintitle, if used, contains a title in the text string that describes domain elements, the primary keyword rangetitle, if used, describes a Y-axis title in the text string, the primary keyword legendtitle, if used, contains a title for a legend box in the text string, the primary keyword title, if used, contains a main title of a chart in the text string, and the primary keyword subtitle, if used, contains a title that appears under the main title in the text string, and wherein the presence of one of the one or more tokens indicates that one of the primary keywords follows the token.

2. The charting metalanguage of claim 1 wherein the primary keyword is written in lower case letters.

3. The charting metalanguage claim 1 wherein the text string includes a plurality of entries separated by spaces.

4. The charting metalanguage of claim 1 further comprising:

at least one secondary keyword selected from the group consisting of domainlabel, rangelabel and legendlabel; and

at least one of the secondary keywords being followed by a text string having entries separated by commas.

5. The charting metalanguage of claim 1 further comprising:

at least one use of the keyword “

chart”

followed by at least one subkeyword selected from the group consisting of pie, table, area, line, text, bar and column.

6. A method for generating a chart comprising:

creating a charting metalanguage file for defining a chart, the charting metalanguage file including at least one keyword selected from the group consisting of domaintitle, rangetitle, legendtitle, title, subtitle, chart, domainlabel, rangelabel, legendlabel, data, font, color and set each keyword being preceded by at least one token wherein the token indicates that at least one keyword follows the token;

downloading the charting metalanguage file from a first computer to a second computer; and

parsing the charting metalanguage file with a software program running on the second computer for generating charts.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising:

displaying a chart generated by the software program from the charting metalanguage file.

8. A system for generating a chart comprising:

a first computer;

a charting metalanguage file stored on the first computer for defining a chart, the charting metalanguage file including at least one keyword selected from the group consisting of domaintitle, rangetitle, legendtitle, title, subtitle, chart, domainlabel, rangelabel, legendlabel, data, font, color and set each keyword being preceded by at least one token, wherein the token indicates that at least one keyword follows the token;

a second computer adapted for receiving the charting metalanguage file from the first computer; and

software means running on the second computer for generating a chart based on the charting metalanguage file.

9. A charting metalanguage for defining a chart comprising:

one or more tokens;

one or more subkeywords selected from the group consisting of title, subtitle, footnote, legendlabel, domaintitle, domainlabel, rangetitle, rangelabel and datalabel;

a font keyword preceded by at least one of the tokens and followed by at least one of the subkeywords, wherein the presence of one of the one or more tokens indicates that the font keyword follows the token and the font keyword is separated from the subkeyword by a space; and

a text string following the subkeyword that specifies at least the font type and font size for the subkeyword.

10. The charting metalanguage of claim 9 further comprising:

a color keyword that specifies the color of a section of the chart.

11. The charting metalanguage of claim 10 further comprising:

one or more indicators that specify whether the color should be applied to the foreground or to the background of the section of the chart.

12. The charting metalanguage of claim 9 further comprising:

a domainelement keyword that specifies the maximum number of viewable elements along the x-axis of the chart.

13. The charting metalanguage of claim 9 further comprising:

a rangeelements keyword that specifies the maximum number of viewable elements along the y-axis of the chart.

14. The charting metalanguage of claim 9 further comprising:

a rangetitle keyword that specifies the title to be associated with the y-axis of the chart.