Method and apparatus for generating structured document

• US 6,014,680 A
• Filed: 08/29/1996
• Issued: 01/11/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/1995
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Sato, Yoshifumi, Hino, Masatoshi
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Stephen S.
• Assistant Examiner(s): BOURQUE, ROBERT D
• Application Number:
  US08/697,782
• Time in Patent Office: 1,230 Days
• Field of Search: 707/513, 707/510
• US Class Current: 715/234
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/221 Parsing markup language streams streaming G06F40/149
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/289 Phrasal analysis, e.g. finite state techniques or chunking

Abstract

A structured document generating method and apparatus capable of easily generating a structured document matching the document structure of each non-structured document, by using a rule directly generated from a preset document structure definition for the conversion of the non-structured document into the structured document. A keyword extracting module extracts a keyword representative of the document structure from a non-structured document by using a keyword extracting rule, and a keyword/text model is generated which is described by two elements including keywords and other strings. A parsing module generated by a process of automatically parsing the document structure by referring to a parsing rule generated by modifying and converting DTD, performs a parsing process relative to the keyword/text model to generate an interim SGML document. An SGML document correcting module modifies the interim SGML document and generates a final output of an SGML document by referring to DTD different information generated when the parsing rule was generated.

Claims

1. A method of generating a structured document for a structured document generating apparatus having at least an input/output device, a control unit, and a repository wherein a non-structured document not explicitly given the document structure and input from said input/output device is converted into a structured document explicitly given the document structure, in accordance with a document structure definition defining the document structure, said method comprising the steps of:

modifying a given first document structure definition so as to match the document structure of said input non-structured document and generate a second document structure definition;

by said control unit, generating a parsing rule used for performing a parsing process suitable for the document structure of said second document structure definition, by modifying marks constituting said second document structure definition and modifying said second document structure definition so as to make the positional order of said marks in one-to-one correspondence;

in accordance with said generated parsing rule, generating a first structured document from said non-structured document; and

in accordance with difference data between said first document structure definition and said second document structure definition, converting said generated first structured document into a format matching said first document structure definition to thereby generate a second structured document.

2. A method of generating a structured document according to claim 1, wherein said first and second document structure definitions include mark trains disposed for defining the relationship between character strings constituting a document to be input.

3. A method of generating a structured document according to claim 2, wherein said parsing rule is generated by embedding a process of explicitly giving the parsed portion of document structure to be parsed, into an interim rule generated by converting said second document structure definition in accordance with a given rule conversion regulation.

4. A method of generating a structured document according to claim 2, wherein the mark strings of said first and second document structure definitions describe the document structure, representing a conceptional relationship between the character strings of a document to be input, by disposing names representing the concept of each character string.

5. A method of generating a structured document according to claim 2, further comprising the steps of:

extracting a keyword from said non-structured document in accordance with a predetermined rule regarding the character strings of a document to be input, and generating a keyword/text model including at least character strings extracted as keywords and other character strings; and

converting said keyword/text model into said first structured document by using said parsing rule.

6. A method of generating a structured document according to claim 5, wherein if the same character string in the same character region is extracted as a plurality of keywords, said control unit selects a proper one from the plurality of keywords in accordance with whether the parsing process succeeds or fails.

7. A method of generating a structured document according to claim 5, wherein said keyword is extracted by analyzing each character string in said non-structured document with reference to a keyword extraction rule having a correspondence between a format condition of each character string and a keyword name.

8. A method of generating a structured document according to claim 7, wherein said keyword extraction rule is generated, if a layout definition of said non-structured document is given, by modifying said layout definition in accordance with a predetermined rule.

9. A storage device storing a program realizing a process executable by a computer, the process comprising the steps of:

modifying a given first document structure definition so as to match the document structure of an input non-structured document and generate a second document structure definition;

a control unit generating a parsing rule used for performing a parsing process suitable for the document structure of said second document structure definition, by modifying marks constituting said second document structure definition and modifying said second document structure definition so as to make the positional order of said marks in one-to-one correspondence;

in accordance with said generated parsing rule, generating a first structured document from said input non-structured document; and

in accordance with difference data between said first document structure definition and said second document structure definition, converting said generated first structured document into a format matching said first document structure definition to thereby generate a second structured document.