System and method for dynamic content retrieval

• US 6,735,586 B2
• Filed: 02/08/2001
• Issued: 05/11/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 02/08/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sybase Incorporated (SAP SE)
• Original Assignee: Sybase Incorporated (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Timmons, Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Mizrahi, Diane D.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Wu, Yicun
• Application Number:
  US09/780,993
• Publication Number:
  US 20010044810A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,188 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/2, 707/3, 707/4, 707/5, 707/6, 707/7, 707/8, 707/9, 707/10, 707/104.1, 709/223, 709/202, 709/246, 709/219, 711/124
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation

Abstract

Systems and methods for collecting information distributed over a computer network are described. Problems addressed by the invention include the marking of content distributed over a network, the instant display of current information distributed over a network, and the retrieval of information at a browser without an intermediary step to save the information. The invention enables customized aggregation of content distributed over a network in real-time. The invention includes a recursive scripting language. Scripts in the recursive scripting language may be used to point dynamically to web objects whose URLs have changed. Embodiments include a feature extraction object used for identifying similar information objects. Feature Extraction may use ‘fuzzy logic’ to insure that targeted content is identified despite modifications in the source page.

Claims

1. A method of parsing a script encoded in a recursive scripting language, wherein the script is at least partially parsed in a first server coupled to a wide area network, the method comprising:

parsing a first command in the script, the first command including a first operand, wherein the first operand is a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), such that the first command corresponds to a load operation;

after parsing the first command, retrieving a network resource corresponding to the URL from the wide area network;

storing the network resource in a first hashtable;

returning the first hashtable to a second command in the script, wherein the first command is nested within the second command;

parsing the second command;

executing the second command, further including storing results of the second command in a second hashtable; and

returning the second hashtable to a third command in the script, wherein the second and first commands are nested within the third command.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the network resource is encoded at least partially in a first markup language.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the network resource is encoded at least partially in a second markup language.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the first and second markup languages are HTML and XML, respectively.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the first markup language is HTML.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the first markup language is XML.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the wide area network is the Internet.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the parsing the first command occurs in the first server.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the parsing the second command occurs on a second server, the second server in communication with the first server and the wide area network.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the network resource is at least partially encoded in a markup language.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

executing the second command, executing the second command further including retrieving a graphic object from the network resource.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

executing the second command, executing the second command further including retrieving a headline from the network resource, the headline encoded at least partially in the markup language.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

executing the second command, executing the second command further including retrieving one of a table from the network resource.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

executing the second command, executing the second command further including retrieving one of a form from the network resource.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the network resource is at least partially encoded in HTML.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the network resource is at least partially encoded in XML.