JPH04281565A - Document retrieving device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To output a retrieval result by inferring the significance of the appearing position of a character string including a key word in a document. CONSTITUTION:A read in document is document-divided to a header part, a preface text part, and a text part. It is decided at which position on the document the key word inputted from an input means appears. The priority of a retrieved document is calculated based on the appearing position of the key word, and the document is outputted as the retrieval result in sequence of calculated priority.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

[Purpose of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a document retrieval device that performs a full text search to extract documents containing input keywords.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, documents have been digitized and a large amount of document data has been distributed. When extracting what the user needs from this large amount of document data, the mainstream search method is to input keywords consisting of character strings. Searches using this keyword are mainly conducted in the following two ways.
Broadly divided into methods.

(1) A method in which keywords are assigned to all documents in advance, and documents to which keywords input by the user are assigned are extracted.

(2) A full-text search method to determine whether the document contains the keyword input by the user.

[0005] In the above method (1), by limiting the number of keywords assigned to a document, character string matching processing with keywords input by the user is minimized, thereby realizing high-speed search. There is. however,
A keyword must be assigned to a document in advance, and if the user specifies a keyword that has not been assigned, it is impossible to extract the document. Moreover, the work of assigning keywords to a document is a burden on the document creator, and the method of determining keywords is sometimes left up to the document creator, making it difficult to ensure uniformity of keywords.

Furthermore, since the method (2) above extracts documents that include the character string input by the user, there are few omissions in extraction.

[0007] By the way, in the methods (1) and (2) above, when a document that satisfies the conditions is found, the documents containing the character string input by the user are listed and displayed, and the search results are displayed to the user. give. Furthermore, the user must scroll the display screen to determine whether each document is suitable for the purpose and select the desired document from among the large amount of output documents. At this time, the user is not shown how the keyword appears in the document.

[0008]

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] As described above, in the conventional full-text search search device, the search results obtained from the search device display documents containing the keyword input by the user as a list in the order in which the files are stored. However, there was a problem in that the user had to read all of the documents displayed in this enumerated manner.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide a document retrieval device that outputs search results by estimating the importance of the appearance position of a character string containing a keyword in a document. do.

[Configuration of the invention]

[0011]

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a document retrieval device that extracts documents that include an inputted keyword in the text, including an input means for inputting a keyword, and a title for a document.・Document dividing means for dividing the document into preface text, body text, etc., a character string matching means for determining whether the above-mentioned keyword is included in the above-mentioned document, and a character string matching means for determining whether or not the above-mentioned keyword is included in the above-mentioned document; a priority calculation means for calculating the priority of the searched document based on the appearance position of the document and the document division information by the document division means; and a search result output means for outputting the documents in the priority order obtained by the priority calculation means. It is characterized by having the following.

0012

[Operation] Since the present invention is configured as described above, priority is given to the searched document based on the position where the keyword inputted from the input means appears in the document (for example, title, preface, body text, etc.). By calculating the priority and outputting documents as search results in the order of the calculated priority, efficient document retrieval is performed.

[0013]

Embodiments Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a document search device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes an external storage device such as a floppy disk device or a hard disk device, which stores document data that has already been created.The document data read from this external storage device 1 is For example, the document data memory 2 is stored in a dynamic RAM. One piece of document data consists of a text data section that includes only text information in the document, and a non-text data section that includes image data, format information, and the like.

Reference numeral 3 denotes an input unit for inputting search keywords, commands, etc., which is composed of, for example, a keyboard, a mouse, and a device for controlling these. Commands and the like are controlled by the control unit 4, such as VRA.
M and the bit information stored in this VRAM are displayed on a display section 5 consisting of a CRT display for displaying the bit information as a dot string. The display unit 5 further displays search results, document data stored in the document data memory 2, and the like.

The control unit 4 is composed of a RAM that stores system programs and is used as a buffer memory, a CPU that executes control operations, etc., and is connected to each of the above-mentioned devices or devices that will be described later by a bus, and controls each device. , and performs control and processing such as data transfer between devices. Note that this control unit 4 includes buffers and counters necessary for control and processing, such as
The number of document data stored in the external storage device 1 is stored in a document number storage buffer (not shown).

6, the text data part of the document data is divided into a title part 7 and a preface part 8, as shown in FIG.
, and the main text portion 9, the document dividing unit divides the document into the text portion 9 from the document data stored in the document data memory 2.
Recalls the line feed code and period as a single sentence. The document dividing unit 6 divides the first sentence of one text document from the first sentence to the preamble of the sentence with a period at the end into a title part 7, which specifically describes the contents of the text document, such as "Introduction" or "Introduction." The preamble, that is, the abstract part of the sentence including the phrase indicating the beginning of the text is determined to be the preface part 8, and the sentence from the next sentence of the preface part to the last sentence of the main text document is determined to be the main text part 9, and the document is divided. This document division information is output to the control section 4.

Reference numeral 10 denotes a matching section which reads a sentence from the document data memory 2 in which text document data is stored and determines whether or not the keyword input from the input section 3 is included in the sentence. On the other hand, reference numeral 11 is a value table for each part, and this value table for each part 11 stores calculated values for ranking documents desired by the user. The calculated value is set depending on which part of the document division part it exists in. For example, as shown in Figure 3, if it is located in the title section 7, "10",
“5” for the introduction part 8, “2” for the main text part
If a keyword is included in the text document, the matching unit 10 determines the position where the keyword appears based on the document division information output from the document division unit 6 to the control unit 4. The value corresponding to is called from the partial value table 11 and added to the calculated value storage buffer 12.For multiple text document data, the addition to the calculated value storage buffer 12 is performed from the first sentence to the last sentence of the text document data. Calculated value storage buffer 12 when performed up to
An example of the contents is shown in Figure 4. This calculated value storage buffer 12
The calculated value stored in indicates the output priority of the search results when outputting the search results.

Reference numeral 13 denotes a search result output unit, and the search result output unit 13 refers to the contents of the calculated value storage buffer 12 in which calculated values for each document are stored, and for example, as shown in FIG. The documents are displayed on the display unit 5 in order of priority, that is, in order of priority.

Next, specific processing operations of the document retrieval apparatus having the above configuration will be explained with reference to a flowchart showing the flow of processing in FIG.

First, the buffers and counters in the control unit 4 and the calculated value storage buffer 12 are initialized.
Subsequently, the user inputs a plurality of keywords consisting of character strings for searching through the input section 3 . (Step S1, Step S2).

When the keyword input is completed, the data of one text document is read into the document data memory 2 from the external storage device 1 in which a plurality of document data are stored. 1 When a text document is read, document division information I
The CHI flag is reset and a text counter N (not shown) in the control unit 4 is set to "1". (
Step S3, Step S4).

Next, the first sentence separated by a line feed code or period, for example, FIG.
The first sentence 14 shown in FIG. 1 (hereinafter described as a specific text document with reference to the text document shown in FIG. 2) is read into the document dividing section 6 and the matching section 10 via the control section 4. (Step S5). When the first sentence 14 is read, the ICHI flag is reset in step S4, so the ICHI flag is set to the text part 9.
Step S of checking whether the preface part 8 is
6 and step S7, the process moves to step S8.

In step S8, since the first sentence 14 has been read, the document dividing unit 6 determines that it is the title part 7. Based on this document division information, the matching unit 10 selects the value "10" corresponding to the title part 7 from the part-by-part value table 11.
” is called, and the ICHI flag is set to “10”.Next, in step S9, it is checked whether or not the read sentence has a final period. Since there is no period, the process moves to step S10.

In step S10, the matching unit 10 uses a matching method to check whether the read sentence includes the keyword input from the input unit 3. Here, if the keyword is the character string "document retrieval device", the first sentence 14 includes the character string "document retrieval device", so the process moves to step S11.

In step S11, the matching unit 10 adds the calculated value to the storage buffer 12. In other words, the value “10” of the ICHI flag is fil
It is added to e[1], that is, the area of "Document 1". After the addition, in step S12, it is checked whether there is another sentence to be read. In the example of FIG. 2, there is one sentence to be read, so the process returns to step S5.

In step S5, the second sentence 15 is read and the same processing as above is performed, but since this sentence 15 does not include the keyword "search", step S11 is skipped (that is, Since the second sentence 15 does not contain any keywords, it is not added to the "Document 1" area), and the process moves from step 10 to step 12, and further, in step S1
2, the process returns to step S5 again.

Returning to step S5, the third sentence 16
is read and the same processing as above is performed, but since this third sentence 16 has a sentence ending point, the processing moves from step S9 to step S13.

In step S13, the third sentence 16 that has been read is the sentence following the title section 7, and there is a period at the end of the sentence, so the document dividing section 6 divides the text into the preface section 8.
It is determined that Based on this document division information, the introductory text part 8 is
The value “5” corresponding to is called, and the ICHI flag is “
When the setting of the value "5" corresponding to the preface part 8 to the ICHI flag is completed, the process moves to step S10.

In step S10, the third sentence 16 read includes the character string "document search device", so the process moves to step S11. In step S11, addition to the calculated value storage buffer 12 is performed, and since the ICHI flag is set to "5", "5" is added to the "Document 1" area. As a result of this addition, the content of the calculated value storage buffer 12 becomes "15". The calculated value storage buffer 12 stores calculated values for each document for all documents, and the priority order of search result output is determined based on this calculated value. When the process of step S11 is completed, the process similarly returns from step S12 to step S5 in order to read the next sentence of the preface section 8.

[0032] Preface part 8 after the third sentence 16
When one sentence is read, the processing from step S7 onwards is partially different from the above processing. That is, in step S7, the ICHI flag is set to the value corresponding to the preface section 8.
5'', the process moves to step 14 instead of step S8.

In step S14, a check is made to see if the read sentence contains the character string "Introduction" indicating the main text portion 9. If the read sentence does not include the character string "Introduction", the process moves to step S10, and the same process as above is repeated.

Further, if the read sentence is the first sentence 17 of the body portion 9, the process proceeds to step S15.
Proceed to. In step S15, since the word "Introduction" is included, the document dividing section 6 is divided into the main text section 9.
It is determined that Based on this document division information, the matching unit 10 sends the value “2” corresponding to the text portion 9 from the portion-specific value table 11.
is called and the ICHI flag is set to "2". Value “2” corresponding to body part 9 to ICHI flag
When the setting is completed, the process moves to step S10.

Step S10 and subsequent steps S11
, the process in step S12 is similar to the process described above, but if the text portion 9 includes a keyword, "2" set in the ICHI flag is stored in the "document" in the calculation value storage buffer 12. 1” area. In the example sentence shown in FIG. 2, since the main text portion 9 does not include a keyword, this addition of "2" is not performed.

When the sentence in body part 9 is read, the ICHI flag is set to the value "2" corresponding to body part 9 in step S15, so intermediate processing steps from step S6 are skipped and the process proceeds to step S10. Processing is transferred.

When the above operations are repeated until the last sentence of body portion 9, there is no longer a sentence to be read, and the search for "Document 1" ends. At this time, the calculated value as shown in FIG. 4 is stored in the calculated value storage buffer 12 in the "Document 1" area.

When there is no more sentence to be read, the process returns from step S16 to step S3 to read the next document, for example "document 2".

Returning to step S3, the text document "Document 2" is read from the external storage device 1 into the document data memory 2 in the same manner as described above, and further, in step S4, the ICHI flag, which is the document division information, is reset. At the same time, the text counter N in the control section 4 is set to "2". After step S5, the same process as the above process is repeated.

In this way, when the search process for all text documents stored in the external storage device 1 is completed, that is, when the document number storage buffer in the control unit 4 matches the value of the text counter N, the process starts. The process moves from step S16 to step S17.

[0041] In step S17, the search result output unit 1
3 is activated, and the contents of the calculated value storage buffer 12 are referenced. If the calculated value storage buffer 12 stores, for example, the contents shown in FIG.
The text documents are displayed on the display unit 5 in the order shown in FIG. 5 in descending order of the calculated values in the calculated value storage buffer 12 and output with priority.

As described above, documents with high calculated values in the calculated value storage buffer 12 are output preferentially because they are close to the documents desired by the user, thereby achieving efficient document retrieval.

In the above embodiment, the matching unit 10 determines whether or not a keyword is included in the read sentence, and stores the calculated value in the storage buffer 12 based on the document division information and the position where the keyword appears. However, the matching section 10 is used for character string matching means for determining whether a keyword is included, document division information, and priority calculation for adding to the calculated value storage buffer 12 based on the position where the keyword appears. A similar effect can be achieved by dividing the configuration into means and means.

[0044] In the above embodiment, the title part 7 of the document is
Although the document is divided into a preface section 8 and a main text section 9, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, an afterword section can be added, or a title section 7 and a main text section 9 can be divided.
The number of document divisions may be added or deleted as desired.

[0045] In the above embodiment, the title part 7 of the document is
, the preface section 8 , and the main text section 9 . However, the present invention is not limited to this, and it goes without saying that the order in which the document is divided can be arbitrarily changed depending on the technical field to which the document belongs.

Further, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and it goes without saying that various modifications can be made without departing from the gist of the present invention.

[0047]

As described in detail above, according to the document search device of the present invention, the importance of a keyword in a document is estimated according to the position of the keyword in the document, and the search results are output. By setting priorities, it is possible to search documents efficiently, and as a result, it is possible to significantly reduce the effort required by the user when searching for the desired item in the document database.The practical effects are as follows. It's a huge amount.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a document search device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of dividing the title, preface, and main text of one document.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of the contents of a partial value table that stores values for prioritizing search results.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of the contents of a calculated value storage buffer that stores calculated values for each document.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the output order of search results.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing an outline of the flow of processing.

[Explanation of symbols]

3...Input section (input means) 6...Document dividing section (document dividing means) 10...Matching section (character string matching means, priority calculation means)

Claims (1)

[Claims] Claim 1: A document retrieval device for extracting documents containing input keywords in text, comprising: input means for inputting keywords; document division means for dividing a document into a title, a preface, a main text, etc.; a character string matching means for determining whether a keyword is included in the document; a search based on the appearance position of the keyword in the document determined by the character string matching means; and document division information by the document dividing means. What is claimed is: 1. A document retrieval device comprising: priority calculation means for calculating the priority of documents; and search result output means for outputting documents in order of priority obtained by the priority calculation means.