METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR AUTOMATICALLY GENERATING WEB PAGE TRANSCODING INSTRUCTIONS

• US 20080288475A1
• Filed: 05/12/2008
• Published: 11/20/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/17/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: Kim, Sang-Heun, Stinson, Charles Laurence
• Granted Patent: US 8,396,881 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/4
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A system and method are provided for generating transcoding instructions to identify and extract a subset of data from a web page. Input describing the subset of data is received where the input describes one or more data fields and, for each data field, respective field values from at least two sample web pages of a web page family for the web site. For each field, respective web page code defining the respective field values may be compared for commonality to find a matching pattern with which to locate the respective field values. The matching pattern comprises a signature for the data field. Transcoding instructions are defined using the matching pattern to locate and extract field values within web pages of the web page family. The subset of data may be expressed in a target format to transcode the web page for particular client machines (e.g. a wireless mobile device).

Claims

1. A method of automatically generating transcoding instructions to locate and extract a subset of data from a selected web page of a web site, the method comprising:

receiving an input describing the subset of data, said input comprising one or more data fields and, for each data field, respective field values from at least two sample web pages of a web page family for the web site; and

for each data field;

comparing respective web page code defining the respective field values for commonality to find a matching pattern with which to locate the respective field values, said matching pattern comprising a signature for the data field; and

defining the transcoding instructions in accordance with the matching pattern to locate and extract field values for the data field within web pages of the web page family.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein comparing respective web page code defining the respective field values comprises locating the respective field values in the respective web page code.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein comparing respective web page code defining the respective field values comprises locating object tags within the web page code.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising constructing a programmatic data structure representing a hierarchy of object tags within the web page code and reviewing the hierarchy to determine the commonality.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein comparing respective web page code comprises performing pattern recognition to define a common pattern within the web page code with which to locate the respective field values.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the web page code comprises markup language in plain text.

7. The method of claim 8 wherein each signature comprises characters selected from the plain text of the web page code.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising automatically defining the input in accordance with a tagging tool that identifies the respective field values from the sample web pages.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the web site comprises an e-commerce web site for making a purchase.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising defining transcoding instructions to express the extracted subset of data in a target format thereby to transcode the web page.

11. A system for automatically generating transcoding instructions to locate and extract a subset of data from a selected web page of a web site, the system comprising a processor and memory coupled thereto, said memory storing instructions and data to configure the processor for:

receiving an input describing the subset of data, said input comprising one or more data fields and, for each data field, respective field values from at least two sample web pages of a web page family for the web site; and

for each data field;

comparing respective web page code defining the respective field values for commonality to find a matching pattern with which to locate the respective field values, said matching pattern comprising a signature for the data field; and

defining the transcoding instructions in accordance with the matching pattern to locate and extract field values for the data field within web pages of the web page family.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein comparing respective web page code defining the respective field values comprises locating the respective field values in the respective web page code.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein comparing respective web page code defining the respective field values comprises locating object tags within the web page code.

14. The system of claim 13 further comprising constructing a programmatic data structure representing a hierarchy of object tags within the web page code and reviewing the hierarchy to determine the commonality.

15. The system of claim 11 wherein comparing the web page code comprises performing pattern recognition to define a common pattern within the web page code with which to locate the respective field values.

16. The system of claim 11 wherein the web page code comprises markup language in plain text.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein each signature comprises characters selected from the plain text of the web page code.

18. The system of claim 11 further comprising automatically defining the input in accordance with a tagging tool that identifies the respective field values from the sample web pages.

19. The system of claim 11 wherein the web site comprises an e-commerce web site for making a purchase.

20. The system of claim 11 further comprising defining transcoding instructions to express the extracted subset of data in a target format thereby to transcode the web page.

21. A computer program product for automatically generating transcoding instructions to locate and extract a subset of data from a selected web page of a web site, the computer program product storing computer readable instructions which when executed by a computer processor configure the processor to:

receive an input describing the subset of data, said input comprising one or more data fields and, for each data field, respective field values from at least two sample web pages of a web page family for the web site; and

for each data field;

compare respective web page code defining the respective field values for commonality to find a matching pattern with which to locate the respective field values, said matching pattern comprising a signature for the data field; and

define the transcoding instructions in accordance with the matching pattern to locate and extract field values for the data field within web pages of the web page family.