Clustering related files in a document management system

• US 20030237051A1
• Filed: 05/14/2003
• Published: 12/25/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Paradise IP LLC (IP Edge LLC)
• Original Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: LaMarca, Anthony G., Dourish, James P., Edwards, Warren K., Salisbury, Michael P.
• Granted Patent: US 7,086,000 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/234
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access

Abstract

A document management system is provided which organizes, stores and retrieves documents according to properties attached to the documents. Applications which function based on hierarchical path names communicate to the document management system through a translator. A tag is inserted into the path of a document to identify the document and represent a dynamic collection. The same tag is inserted into the path of files which support the document so that the supporting files are related to the document by the path tag. In this manner, the document management system identifies and locates all documents which are related to each other based on the tag. Thus, an application is provided with all related files even though the application may not know where the files are actually stored or retrieved from.

Claims

1. A method of managing a first document and a second document which are related to each other and are identified by a location path and name, the method comprising the steps of

associating a path tag to the first document which identifies the first document;

associating the path tag to the second document as a property representing a relationship to the first document; and

retrieving both the first and second documents by a single query based on the path tag.

2. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein the retrieving includes:

requesting retrieval of the first document;

extracting the path tag from the first document; and

generating the single query to retrieve documents having the path tag associated thereto.

3. The method as set forth in claim 2 wherein the path tag is a unique document identifier.

4. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein the path tag is inserted in a path of the first document, and the retrieving includes:

requesting retrieval of the first document by an application based on the a path and a file name of the first document, the application being unaware of the path tag associated to the first document;

extracting the path tag from the path of the first document;

locating the second file based on the path tag and providing, to the application, access to the second file where the application being unaware of a location of the second file.

5. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein the first document and second document are stored in different locations and the single query retrieves both the first and second documents based on the path tag.

6. In a system where an application stores and retrieves a document based on a path and filename, and stores and retrieves supporting files of the document based on the path, a method of generating a dynamic collection of related documents including the document and the supporting files comprising the steps of:

inserting a tag in the path of the document, the tag being a unique identifier of the document;

generating a supporting file for the document and associating the tag to the supporting file such that the supporting file and document are identified and retrieved as a collection based on the tag.

7. The method as set forth in claim 6 further including, upon subsequent processing of the document, extracting the tag from the path of the document and locating the supporting file based on the tag.

8. The method as set forth in claim 6 wherein the document and the supporting file are stored in different locations and a single query based on the tag locates and retrieves both the document and supporting file.

9. The method as set forth in claim 6 wherein the tag is associated to the supporting file by inserting the tag in a path of the supporting file.

10. The method as set forth in claim 9 wherein the path of the supporting file is different from the path of the document except for the tag.

11. A method of launching an application on a document, the method comprising the steps of:

selecting the document for processing with the application, the document including a path and a path tag which identifies the document;

extracting the path and path tag;

launching the application on the document based on the extracted path; and

locating and retrieving, based on the path tag while discarding the path, the document and supporting files for the document, the supporting files including the path tag which represents a relationship to the document.

12. The method as set forth in claim 11 wherein the path tag is a unique file-ID inserted into the path.

13. The method as set forth in claim 11 wherein the path of the document is different than a path of the supporting files.

14. The method as set forth in claim 11 wherein the locating includes generating a query which requests files having the path tag associated thereto.