Method and apparatus for monitoring and maintaining the consistency of distributed documents
First Claim
1. A method of processing structured electronic documents for consistency, the method comprising:
- defining one or more consistency rules, each of the one or more consistency rules including at least one condition and associated with at least one pointer identifying a portion of a structured electronic document;
utilizing the at least one pointer to identify any elements of data located within the identified portion of the structured electronic document;
determining whether the at least one condition is satisfied based on the identified element or elements of data; and
generating consistency link data including a locator associated with a location within the structured electronic document based upon the determination.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
A computer network comprising a plurality of terminals (1–4) connected via a communications network 5 is provided. In each of the terminals (1–4) application software (15) for generating XML source documents is provided. XML source documents created using the application software (15) are then sent to one of the terminals (4) having stored therein a consistency checker (10). The consistency checker (10) processes the source document together with a set of consistency rules (14) to generate an output presentation identifying data within the source documents which does or does not fulfil the requirements of consistency relationships defined by the consistency rules (14).
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Citations
36 Claims
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1. A method of processing structured electronic documents for consistency, the method comprising:
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defining one or more consistency rules, each of the one or more consistency rules including at least one condition and associated with at least one pointer identifying a portion of a structured electronic document; utilizing the at least one pointer to identify any elements of data located within the identified portion of the structured electronic document; determining whether the at least one condition is satisfied based on the identified element or elements of data; and generating consistency link data including a locator associated with a location within the structured electronic document based upon the determination. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A computer-implemented method of generating an output presentation identifying data which does or does not fulfill the requirements of consistency rules, the method comprising:
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defining one or more consistency rules, each of the one or more consistency rules including at least one condition and associated with at least one pointer identifying a portion of a structured electronic document; utilizing the at least one pointer to identify any elements of data located within the identified portion of the structured electronic document; determining whether the at least one condition is satisfied based on the identified element or elements of data; generating consistency link data including a locator associated with a location within the structured electronic document based upon the determination; processing the consistency link data to generate an output presentation; and making the output presentation available to a user. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. An apparatus for processing structured electronic documents based on consistency rules, the apparatus comprising:
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a memory including; instructions for receiving data defining structured electronic documents; instructions for storing data defining one or more consistency rules, each of the one or more consistency rules including at least one condition and associated with at least one pointer identifying a portion of a structured electronic document; instructions for utilizing the at least one pointer to identify any elements of data located within the identified portion of the structured electronic document; instructions for determining whether the at least one condition is satisfied based on the identified element or elements of data; and instructions for generating consistency link data including a locator associated with a location within the structured electronic document based upon the determination; and a processor configured to execute the instructions included in the memory. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27)
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28. An apparatus for generating an output presentation identifying data that may fulfill the requirements of a set of consistency rules, comprising:
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a receiver operable to receive data defining structured electronic documents; a rules store operable to store data defining one or more consistency rules, each of the one or more consistency rules including at least one condition and associated with at least one pointer identifying a portion of a structured electronic document; an identification module operable to utilize the at least one pointer to identify any elements of data located within the identified portion of the structured electronic document; a processor operable to determine whether the at least one condition is satisfied based on the identified element or elements of data; a data generation unit operable to generate consistency link data including a locator associated with a location within the structured electronic document based upon the determination; and an output generation unit operable to process the consistency link data to generate an output presentation. - View Dependent Claims (29, 30, 31, 32, 33)
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34. A computer readable medium with code embodied therein for performing a method, the method comprising:
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receiving data defining structured electronic documents; storing data defining one or more consistency rules, each of the one or more consistency rules including at least one condition and associated with at least one pointer identifying a portion of a structured electronic document; utilizing the at least one pointer to identify any elements of data located within the identified portion of the structured electronic document; determining whether the at least one condition is satisfied based on the identified element or elements of data; and generating consistency link data including a locator associated with a location within the structured electronic document based upon the determination. - View Dependent Claims (35, 36)
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Specification