Identifying reference data in a source data set

A system having one or more computer processors, the system configured to:

• input a block of attribute values to a predefined machine learning model;
• receive, from the machine learning model, an indication of a presentation layout of the block of the attribute values and an associated reference data extraction method;
• determine a reading direction of the block of values;
• identify one or more inspection areas, from the block of values, in the reading direction of the block of values;
• determine a set of the one or more inspection areas that shares a common presentation feature;
• identify tokens in the set of the one or more inspection areas;
• determine if the set of the one or more inspection areas comprises reference data values, wherein the determining uses a frequency distribution of the identified tokens;
• and
• output the reference data values.

A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a server to cause the server to perform a method, the method comprising:

• inputting a block of attribute values to a predefined machine learning model;
• receiving, from the machine learning model, an indication of a presentation layout of the block of the attribute values and an associated reference data extraction method;
• determining a reading direction of the block of values;
• identifying one or more inspection areas, from the block of values, in the reading direction of the block of values;
• determining a set of the one or more inspection areas that shares a common presentation feature;
• identifying tokens in the set of the one or more inspection areas;
• determining if the set of the one or more inspection areas comprises reference data values, wherein the determining uses a frequency distribution of the identified tokens;
• and
• outputting the reference data values.