A text comparator receives data stored in a mass storage device. The text comparator includes word logic, delimiter logic, set logic, set combination logic, proximity logic, and programming logic. The delimiter logic serves to monitor the characters transferred from the mass storage device and provides discrete signals depicting whether the character being transferred is a predefined delimiter character. The word logic serves to store data regarding predefined words (i.e., strings of characters) which are to be located and provides output word signals indicating when such predefined words have been located. The set logic receives the delimiter signals and word signals and provides output signals when selected words are located in the same sentence, same paragraph, etc., as desired. The set combination logic serves to combine the signals from the set logic in order to generate output signals in response to more complex search strategies than can be easily detected by the set logic. The proximity logic provides output signals indicating when predefined words detected by word logic or predefined set of words, as detected by set logic or a combination of this information, occurs within a predefined proximity. For example, proximity logic will determine if a first selected word occurs within N (where N is a selected integer) words of a second preselected word. The programming logic serves to receive search strategy instructions from the user and in response thereto provide the proper timing, addressing, and data signals the word logic, delimiter logic, set logic, set combination logic, and proximity logic to cause to be stored within these elements the information required to perform the desired search strategy.
RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent appliction Ser. No. 06/342,620 filed Jan. 25, 1982, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,531,201 issued 7-23-85.
When a network representing the relationship among immense concepts is indicated using a multi-window function, a concept network display system simultaneously displays a superconcept for a current concept in the network, a network representing the subsumption relation of the current concept, and a network representing generic and instance relations of the current concept in a dynamically linked relationship. The concept network display system also edits the displays of the networks by rewriting displayed networks in response to selection of a new current concept, and displays a history of the current concepts without repetition.
A method and word processing system for handling text pasted into a document that uses a paragraph delimiter different than that employed by the word processing system. A computer system (10) that is generally conventional in design executes a word processing program that efficiently handles text pasted into a word processing document, even though that text uses a paragraph delimiter different than the native paragraph delimiter of the word processing system. The document opened by the word processing system has a corresponding piece table that includes an array of character positions and an array of data records. Each piece of the piece table represents adjacent characters that stored together in a file, and each record or PCD in the array of data records corresponds to a different piece in the piece table. When a file is opened to select text that will be pasted into the word processing document, a corresponding entry is made in the piece table that includes pointers to a file control block (FCB) for the opened file. The FCB indicates the type of paragraph delimiter used for that text. Thus, the word processing system tracks the appropriate paragraph delimiter used and translates any foreign paragraph delimiter to the native delimiter when displaying the text for editing. When the document is saved to a file, the paragraph delimiter associated with the text is translated to the native paragraph delimiter used by the word processing system.
A text pattern matching system locates documents whose text patterns satisfy selected criteria as set forth in a query. The system represents text as a series of symbols, each representing a word, number, or other searchable feature. A query also comprises a series of symbols, which also represent a word, number or other searchable feature. In one embodiment, the symbols of the documents and queries are represented by text tokens and query tokens, respectively. The system initially performs a sort to order all tokens according to symbol, and generates a match token for each text token that has the same symbol as a query token. The system then sorts the match tokens to order them according to query and query-symbol order, and then searches through the match tokens to identify series associated with documents, for which the match tokens were generated, which identify series of symbols which satisfy the search criteria.
A comparison circuit having at least one processing cell in which objects defined by multiple parameters are streamed from a data base through the circuit, and compared with a similarly structured object previously stored in the cell. The object stored in the cell and objects streamed through the cell are all defined by data values indicative of maximum and minimum values of the parameters making up the objects. A match is declared when all parameters of the object stored in the cell overlap the parameter ranges of the objects streamed through the cell. With the use of multiple cells connected in series or in parallel, or in a combination of series and parallel, the processing speed of the comparison circuit is increased linearly with the number of such cells. Therefore, searching of large data bases can be performed at very high speeds and configurations of interconnected processing cells can be easily interconnected and loaded to define a number of objects of interest. Special processing features permit objects to be longer than a single cell, and permit multiple ranges of a parameter to be compared repeatedly with a single stored parameter.
A special-purpose search processor, and a related method, for performing a variety of logically complex searches of a serial data stream in a highly concurrent fashion. The processor comprises a sequence of serially connected cells of identical construction, and the data stream is passed through the sequence of cells, each cell performing a logical operation based only on the data provided to it from the previous cell in the sequence. Each cell has a character register for data storage and a pattern register for storage of part of a search pattern. The contents of the two registers are compared in each cell, at each cycle of a clock used to propagate the data through the processor. Match indicators or match tolerance values are propagated through the processor on a match line, and match results emerge in synchronism with the data stream. Multiple match lines are employed in one preferred embodiment, to temporarily save, retrieve and exchange match tolerance values, in order to effect logically complex searches in a highly concurrent manner. Types of searches that may be performed include logical OR and AND searches, common-prefix OR searches, and searches involving variable-length and fixed-length don't-care strings, variable-length care strings, and negate strings.
