US 6,557,004 B1 · Method and apparatus for fast searching of hand-held contacts lists

Abstract

The present invention provides a quick searching method for filtering a contact list in a hand-held device. Under the method, upon receiving a search string from a user, a database object is opened that is sorted alphabetically on the first name of each contact. A search is then performed on the sorted list to retrieve the ID's of the first record in the sorted list and the last record in the sorted list that have a first name that matches the search string. A second database object is then opened that is sorted alphabetically on a “filed as” field. The “filed as” list is then searched to find the first and last records that match the search string. The first name search results and the “filed as” search results are then combined. The records in the combination are then displayed to the user.

Claims26

Dependent claims

A method of generating a user interface on a hand-held device, the method comprising:

receiving a search string from the user;
generating a first database object from a database containing contacts records, each record comprising a first field and a second field, the first database object being sorted on the first field;
searching for the search string in the first database object and retrieving search-based record ID's for records with first field entries that begin with the search string;
generating a second database object that is sorted on the second field;
searching for the search string in the second database object and retrieving search-based record indices for records with second field entries that begin with the search string;
combining the search-based record ID's with the search-based record indices to produce a full list of indices;
and
displaying at least one field of at least one record identified by the full list of indices.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Method and apparatus for fast searching of hand-held contacts lists

Life of this patent

Method and apparatus for fast searching of hand-held contacts lists

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims26