Information retrieval system and method with implementation extensible query architecture

A computer implemented method of creating search queries for a database comprising a plurality of documents, the method comprising:

• storing in a computer readable medium a plurality of query node creators, each query node creator capable of creating a query node that executes a search query to identify a next document in the database as a function of a search query operator upon at least one data element;
• storing in the computer readable medium a plurality of search operators, each search operator associated with a selected query node creator;
• receiving an input search query having a search query operator and at least one data element associated therewith;
• identifying each search query operator and associated data element in the search query;
• and
• for each search query operator in the search query:
• identifying the query node creator associated with the search query operator in the computer readable medium;
• and
• invoking the associated query node creator to create query node for the search query operator and the associated data element.

A computer implemented method of executing a search query including a search query operator associated with at least one search data element, on a database comprising a plurality of documents, each document having a document number, the method comprising:

• receiving an input including a first document number, and a first document score;
• identifying a document having a second document number greater than the first document number and a non-zero second document score as a function of the search query operator and the at least one search data element;
• setting the first document number to the second document number;
• and
• setting the first document score to the second document score.

An information retrieval system for searching and retrieving selected documents in a database of documents in response to a search query including at least one search query operator and at least one associated data element, each document having an identifier and a document score, the information retrieval system, comprising:

• a) a query node base class including:
• i) a search data element member for storing at least one search data element;
• and,
• ii) a search function member accepting an input including a first document number, the search member function executable by a processor for searching the database to retrieve a document having a second document number greater than the first document number, and a non-zero document score, and to return the non-zero document score and the second document number.
• b) at least one query node class derived from the query node base class;
• c) a query node creator baseclass including:
• a query data element member that stores at least one query data element including either a search data element or a subordinate query node;
• the query node creator base class returning a query node having as a search data element the query data element in response to an invocation of a constructor function of the query node creator base class;
• and
• d) at least one query node creator class derived from the query node creator baseclass, each query node creator class associated with a selected search query operator.