Indexing structures using synthetic document summaries

• US 8,645,349 B2
• Filed: 01/27/2012
• Issued: 02/04/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/27/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Roark, Evan Matthew, Djurhuus, Rune
• Primary Examiner(s): To, Baoquoc N
• Application Number:
  US13/359,506
• Publication Number:
  US 20130198221A1
• Time in Patent Office: 739 Days
• Field of Search: 707/705, 707/706, 707/707
• US Class Current: 707/705
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems

Abstract

A search engine provides efficient and scalable search queries for documents using a document summaries index file structure. The document summaries index file structure comprises an index portion and a records portion. The index portion contains a plurality of document identifiers, each of which is linked to a record in the record values portion. The records portion includes a document summary that may include a number of fields, including a name-length, name, type, and value-length, and value. Each record value is searched to determine if the contents matches criteria in the search request. The document summaries index file can be modified to add new indexable criteria in a scalable and efficient manner.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for processing a request for a document search comprising:

receiving a query for at least one document from an application programming interface wherein the query comprises a search term identifier value and a search term value;

receiving a document summaries index file into a memory of a computer, the document summaries index file comprising an index portion and a records portion, the index portion comprising a plurality of document identifiers each identifying a document and the records portion comprising at least one record for each document identifier linked to a corresponding document identifier, each record having a structure comprising a name field, a type field, and a value field;

processing the document summaries index file by a processor of the computer to ascertain for each record in the records portion whether the name field is equal to the search term identifier and if so then determining whether the value field is equal to the search term value; and

providing to the application programming interface that generated the query each document identifier where the name field is equal to the search term identifier and the value field is equal to the search term value.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the computer is a server is a cloud computing environment.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 2, wherein the request for the document search is for searching for the at least one document associated with a user receiving document management services from the computer.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 2, wherein the name field indicates the value field indicates an author of the document and the value field indicates the author.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 4, wherein the search term identifier indicates the search term value comprises data indicating the author and the search term value comprises data indicating the author.

6. The computer implemented method of claim 2, wherein each record further comprises a field indicating a length of the value field.

7. The computer implemented method of claim 6, wherein each record further comprises an additional field indicating a length of the name field.

8. The computer implemented method of claim 7, wherein each record further comprises a type field indicating a type value of data in the value field.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 3, wherein a subset of a search result comprising a subset of the record values are provided to a client application executing on a user'"'"'s computer.

10. A computer readable storage medium storing instructions thereon that when executed by a processor cause the processor to:

receive a query for a document search comprising at least one document wherein the query comprises a search term identifier and a search term value;

receive a document summaries index file into a memory of a computer, the document summaries index file comprising an index portion and a records portion, the index portion comprising a plurality of document identifiers each identifying a document and the records portion comprising at least one record associated with each document identifier, each record having a structure comprising a name field, a type field, and a value field;

process the document summaries index file to ascertain for each record in the records portion whether the name field is equal to the search term identifier and if so then determining whether the value field is equal to the search term value; and

provide to an application programming interface that generated the query each document identifier where the name field is equal to the search term identifier and the value field is equal to the search term value.

11. The computer readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the search term identifier indicates the search term value comprises data indicating an author and the search term value comprises data indicating the author.

12. The computer readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the name field comprises an indication of the value field indicating an author value and the value field indicates the author.

13. The computer readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the document summaries index file comprises a plurality of document identifiers associated with a single document and a corresponding plurality of records associated with the single document.

14. The computer readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein one of the plurality of record values comprises the name field indicating the contents of the value field indicates a title of a document, and the value field indicates the title of the document.

15. The computer readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein another one of the plurality of record values comprises another name field indicating the contents of another value field, and the another value field indicates a date of the document.

16. A computing system for processing a request for a document search comprising:

a memory storing a document summaries index file comprising an index portion and a records portion, the index portion comprising a plurality of document identifiers each identifying a document and the records portion comprising at least one record for each document identifier, each record having a structure comprising a name field, a type field, and a value field; and

a processor configured to receive a query from an application programming interface for the document search wherein the query comprises a search term identifier and a search term value,

compare each record in the records portion to ascertain whether the search term identifier matches the name field and if so whether the search term value matches the value field, and provide to the application programming interface that generated the query each document identifier where the search term identifier matches the name field and the search term value matches the value field.

17. The computing system of claim 16, wherein the name field indicates the value field stores an author name and the value field indicates the author name.

18. The computing system of claim 17, wherein the type field indicates a data type of the value field comprises a string data type.

19. The computing system of claim 17, wherein each record further comprises a first length field indicating the length of the name field and a second length field indicating the length of the value field (value column) (col. 2, lines 57-67).

20. The computing system of claim 19, wherein the processor is further configured to:

update the document summaries index file structure for a new schema, comprising a second name field indicating a different value than the name field.