Document processing apparatus, document processing method, document processing program and recording medium

• US 7,984,076 B2
• Filed: 12/28/2007
• Issued: 07/19/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 05/10/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Akabane, Makoto, Kobayashi, Kenichiro, Nitta, Tomoaki, Yamazaki, Nobuhide, Kobayashi, Erika
• Primary Examiner(s): Fleurantin; Jean B
• Application Number:
  US12/005,924
• Publication Number:
  US 20080256120A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,299 Days
• Field of Search: 707 1- 10, 707100-1041, 707200-206, 707600-831, 715/230, 715/234, 715/248, 715/249, 715/272, 715205-209
• US Class Current: 707/803
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

The text format of input data is checked, and is converted into a system-manipulated format. It is further determined if the input data is in an HTML or e-mail format using tags, heading information, and the like. The converted data is divided into blocks in a simple manner such that elements in the blocks can be checked based on repetition of predetermined character patterns. Each block section is tagged with a tag indicating a block. The data divided into blocks is parsed based on tags, character patterns, etc., and is structured. A table in text is also parsed, and is segmented into cells. Finally, tree-structured data having a hierarchical structure is generated based on the sentence-structured data. A sentence-extraction template paired with the tree-structured data is used to extract sentences.

Claims

1. A document processing apparatus comprising:

block dividing means for dividing input document data into blocks in a predetermined manner according to the structure of the document data;

document structuring means for structuring the document data by parsing a block into which the document data is divided by said block dividing means according to the document structure of the block, and by adding tag information to text data constituting the block, said tag information indicating an attribute of the text data;

storing means for storing an extraction mode for determining whether or not a sentence is extracted with respect to a tag information added to text data; and

sentence extraction means for controlling an extraction of the text data according to the tag information added to the text data by said document structuring means and said extraction mode stored in said storing means, wherein said sentence extraction means further includes tag determining means for taking an action according to the tag information, and said tag determining means determines a type of tag information for the text data tagged with tag information according to the tag information and tag action data including action data indicating an action associated with the tag information, and takes the action set for the tag action data.

2. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said block dividing means outputs block-structured data, said block-structured data being tagged with predetermined tag information indicating the blocks into which the document data has been divided by said block dividing means, and

said document structuring means processes said block-structured data.

3. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the input document data is generated by an external device, and said document structuring means processes block-structured data, said block-structured data being tagged with predetermined tag information indicating the blocks into which the document data has been divided by said block dividing means.

4. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said document structuring means outputs sentence-structured data, said sentence-structured data being tagged with predetermined tag information indicating the document data which has been structured by said document structuring means, and

said sentence extraction means processes said sentence-structured data.

5. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the input document data is generated by an external device, and said sentence extraction means processes sentence-structured data, said sentence-structured data being tagged with predetermined tag information indicating the document data which has been structured by said document structuring means.

6. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

text-format determining means for determining a text format type of the input document data,

wherein a document data output from said text-format determining means is input to said block dividing means.

7. A document processing apparatus according to claim 6, wherein said block dividing means identifies a blank line as a block break when it is determined by said text-format determining means that the input document data is in a text format.

8. A document processing apparatus according to claim 6, wherein said block dividing means identifies, as the block, a group of lines having a same number of characters when it is determined by said text-format determining means that the input data is in a text format.

9. A document processing apparatus according to claim 6, wherein said block dividing means identifies, as the block, a group of lines whose character string starts at a same position when it is determined by said text-format determining means that the input data is in a text format.

10. A document processing apparatus according to claim 6, wherein said block dividing means identifies, as the block, a section enclosed by a predefined character string for a ruled line when it is determined by said text-format determining means that the input data is in a text format.

11. A document processing apparatus according to claim 10, further comprising ruled-line character registering means which allows a user to register the character string for a ruled line.

12. A document processing apparatus according to claim 6, wherein said block dividing means identifies a series of predefined characters or character strings as a ruled line, and identifies a section enclosed by the ruled line as the block when it is determined by said text-format determining means that the input data is in a text format.

13. A document processing apparatus according to claim 12, further comprising continuous-character-based ruled-line character registering means which allows a user to register the series of characters or character strings which is identified as a ruled line.

14. A document processing apparatus according to claim 12, further comprising continuous-character-number specifying means for specifying a number of characters or character strings which continuously appear to form a ruled line.

15. A document processing apparatus according to claim 6, wherein said block dividing means identifies, as a block break, a break at a predefined character string for a horizontal rule when it is determined by said text-format determining means that the input document data is in a text format.

16. A document processing apparatus according to claim 15, further comprising horizontal-rule character registering means which allows a user to register the character string for a horizontal rule.

17. A document processing apparatus according to claim 6, wherein said block dividing means stores a character position of original text as the tag information when it is determined by said text-format determining means that the input document data is in a text format.

18. A document processing apparatus according to claim 6, wherein said block dividing means identifies, as the block, a section specified by a function tag indicating a comment or a document type when it is determined by said text-format determining means that the input document data is in a tagged text format.

19. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising text-format determining means including:

decoding means which determines an encoding method of the input document data to decode the document data; and

converting means for converting a character coding of the document data which is provided from said decoding means into a predetermined character coding,

wherein the document data whose character coding has been converted into the predetermined character coding by said converting means is input to said block dividing means.

20. A document processing apparatus according to claim 19, wherein said text-format determining means further includes character-coding specifying means for specifying a processed character coding, and selects the character coding in place of the predetermined character coding.

21. A document processing apparatus according to claim 20, wherein the document processing apparatus processes the document data according to an original character coding if said character-coding specifying means does not specify a character coding.

22. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said document structuring means further includes blank line determining means which identifies a blank line in the block as a sentence break to segment the block into sentences.

23. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said document structuring means further includes quotation-mark determining means for checking for matching of quotation marks in the block, for referring to one or a plurality of blocks before and after the block if the quotation marks do not match, and for, if the quotation marks in the blocks match, restructuring the blocks in which the quotation marks match into a single block.

24. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said document structuring means further includes paragraph determining means for checking for a paragraph break based on a position at which a line of the block starts, and for adding tag information indicating a paragraph to a section of a paragraph.

25. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said document structuring means further includes paragraph determining means for determining a paragraph break based on a position at which a line of the block starts and based on a number of characters in the line, and for adding tag information indicating a paragraph to a section of a paragraph.

26. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, when the input document data is in a predetermined tagged text format, the input document data being tagged with tag information specifying the document structure, said document structuring means uses the tag information.

27. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said document structuring means further includes English-text determining means for determining whether or not text in the block is in English, and for, if the text is in English, segmenting the English text into sentences such that a line is continued to a next line if a hyphen is inserted at an end of the line and a line is continued to the next line with a white space inserted therebetween if no hyphen is inserted at the end of the line and if the line does not end with a delimiter.

28. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said document structuring means segments the block into sentences based on a period used as a sentence break.

29. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said sentence extraction means expresses the document data, which is structured according to the tag information generated by said document structuring means, as tree-structured data.

30. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said sentence extraction means expresses the document data, which is structured according to the tag information generated by said document structuring means, as tree-structured data, and controls an extraction of the text data according to the tag information added to the tree-structured data.

31. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said sentence extraction means expresses the document data, which is structured according to the tag information generated by said document structuring means, as tree-structured data, and controls movement of an objective point on the document according to the tag information added to the tree-structured data.

32. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said sentence extraction means expresses the document data, which is structured according to the tag information generated by said document structuring means, as tree-structured data, and extracts the text data row-by-row according to the tree-structured data when the tag information added to the tree-structured data indicates a table.

33. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said sentence extraction means expresses the document data, which is structured according to the tag information generated by said document structuring means, as tree-structured data, and extracts the text data column-by-column according to the tree-structured data when the tag information added to the tree-structured data indicates a table.

34. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said sentence extraction means expresses the document data, which is structured according to the tag information generated by said document structuring means, as tree-structured data, and, when the tag information added to the tree-structured data indicates a table having a numerical unit at a first row or column and having numerical information at a subsequent respective row or column, extracts the text data with the numerical unit added to the numerical information.

35. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said sentence extraction means expresses the document data, which is structured according to the tag information generated by said document structuring means, as tree-structured data, and, when the tag information added to the tree-structured data indicates a table having a numerical unit at a first row or column and having numerical information at a subsequent respective row or column, explicitly directs to extract the text data with the numerical unit added to the numerical information.

36. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said sentence extraction means expresses the document data, which is structured according to the tag information generated by said document structuring means, as tree-structured data, and, when the tag information added to the tree-structured data indicates a table, extracts the text data with the text data at a first column or row in the table added to the text data in a subsequent respective column or row.

37. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said sentence extraction means expresses the document data, which is structured according to the tag information generated by said document structuring means, as tree-structured data, and, when the tag information added to the tree-structured data indicates a table, explicitly directs to extract the text data with the text data at a first column or row in the table added to the text data in a subsequent respective column or row.

38. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said sentence extraction means extracts the document data, which is structured according to the tag information generated by said document structuring means, as tree-structured data, and determines whether or not a quoted section is extracted when the tag information added to the tree-structured data indicates a quotation.

39. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said sentence extraction means expresses the document data, which is structured according to the tag information generated by said document structuring means, as tree-structured data, and extracts the text data paragraph-by-paragraph using tag information added to the tree-structured data which indicates a paragraph.

40. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said sentence extraction means expresses the document data, which is structured according to the tag information generated by said document structuring means, as tree-structured data, and extracts the text data heading-by-heading using tag information added to the tree-structured data which indicates a heading.

41. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the tag action data is registered by a user.

42. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said sentence extraction means expresses the document data, which is structured according to the tag information generated by said document structuring means, as tree-structured data, and includes a sentence-extraction template which is paired with the tree-structured data in which each node is associated with an extraction control flag, and

if the extraction control flag prohibits extraction of the text data, said sentence extraction means does not extract the text data flagged with the extraction control flag.

43. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined condition comprises an indication that an extraction mode be utilized by said sentence extraction means for controlling the extraction of the text data.

44. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined condition comprises an indication that tag action data be utilized by said sentence extraction means for controlling the extraction of the text data.

45. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the structured data comprises sentence-structured data.

46. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the structured data comprises tree-structured data.

50. A document processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined condition comprises an indication that a template be utilized by said sentence extraction means for controlling the extraction of the text data.

47. A computer-implemented document processing method comprising the steps of:

dividing input document data into blocks in a predetermined manner according to a structure of the document data;

structuring the document data, thereby generating structured data, by parsing a block into which the document data is divided in said block dividing step according to a document structure of the block, and by adding tag information to text data constituting the block, said tag information indicating an attribute of the text data;

controlling an extraction of the text data according to the added tag information and a predetermined condition, wherein the predetermined condition provides an indication of a method to be utilized to perform the extraction of the text data;

determining a type of tag information for the text data tagged with tag information and tag action data including action data indicating an action associated with the tag information; and

taking the action associated with the tag information.

48. A document processing program for causing a computer apparatus to execute a document processing method comprising the steps of:

dividing input document data into blocks in a predetermined manner according to a structure of the document data;

structuring the document data, thereby generating structured data, by parsing a block into which the document data is divided in said block dividing step according to a document structure of the block, and by adding tag information to text data constituting the block, said tag information indicating an attribute of the text data;

controlling an extraction of the text data according to the added tag information and a predetermined condition, wherein the predetermined condition provides an indication of a method to be utilized to perform the extraction of the text data;

determining a type of tag information for the text data tagged with tag information and tag action data including action data indicating an action associated with the tag information; and

taking the action associated with the tag information.

49. a non-transitory computer-readable recording storage medium having a document processing program recorded thereon, the document processing program, when executed, causing a computer apparatus to execute a document processing method comprising the steps of:

dividing input document data into blocks in a predetermined manner according to a structure of the document data;

structuring the document data, thereby generating structured data, by parsing a block into which the document data is divided in said block dividing step according to a document structure of the block, and by adding tag information to text data constituting the block, said tag information indicating an attribute of the text data;

controlling an extraction of the text data according to the added tag information and a predetermined condition, wherein the predetermined condition provides an indication of a method to be utilized to perform the extraction of the text data.

determining a type of tag information for the text data tagged with tag information and tag action data including action data indicating an action associated with the tag information; and

taking the action associated with the tag information.