Method for automatic wrapper generation

Abstract

A method of automatically generating a wrapper for extracting variable data from a Web-site includes providing a result page from the Web-site; detecting repeating sequences of HTML tags in the page, wherein a sequence includes at least two HTML tags enclosing at least one text field for containing variable data; determining the longest and most frequently repeated sequence; generating an expression for extracting variable data using the first determined sequence; and assigning a label to the at least one text field within the first determined sequence. The method is automatic in that no annotated, sample pages are required for the method to work. Labels can be generated by a hypothesizing algorithm or by evaluating the HTML tags for possible information or by some other technique.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.