US 7,069,501 B2Granted

Structured document processing system and structured document processing method

AssigneeFuji Xerox Co., Ltd.

InventorsSetsu Kunitake, Ichiro Yamashita, Shigehisa Kawabe

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Abstract

Without using a script that describes a procedure, document parts are extracted from structured documents and inserted or substituted in a template to synthesize a document. An extraction instruction to retrieve document parts, and repetitive duplication and insertion/substitution instructions are provided to the structured documents. Therefore, document part retrieval, repetitive duplication, and a document part (location) in which a document part is to be inserted or substituted are specified, and instructions retrieved from plural inputted structured documents are dynamically synthesized to create a document processing description, so that a document processing description script becomes unnecessary. Consequently, the inconvenience of managing scripts in addition to original documents is eliminated.

Claims14

Dependent claims

A structured document processing system for processing a structured document that is structurally represented and contains one or more document parts, the structured document processing system comprising:

a processor;
rule providing means for providing a plurality of extraction rules to extract a document part, a repetitive duplication rule to duplicate a document part by a given number of times, or an insertion/substitution rule to insert or substitute a document part to a corresponding document part, the rule providing means embedding the plurality of rules in a plurality of structured documents containing the document part;
a processing invocation description analyzing means for analyzing processing invocation descriptions;
analyzing means for analyzing the structure of the structured documents to generate parse trees;
a plurality of rule separating means for separating the rules embedded in the structured documents and the document part to retrieve the rules, based on the parse trees generated by the analyzing means;
document processing synthesizing means for synthesizing a document processing rule string based only on the rule embedded in each structured document, the document processing description synthesizing means merging and sorting the extraction rule embedded in a first structured document and retrieved by the rule separating means, and the repetitive duplication rule and/or insertion/substitution rule embedded in a second structured document and retrieved by the rule separating means from a second structured document in which the repetitive duplication rule and/or insertion/substitution rule is embedded, to synthesize a document processing rule string for processing the first and second structured documents;
extracting means for retrieving a first document part subject to the extraction rule from the first structured document;
repetitive duplication means for repeatedly duplicating a document part subject to the repetitive duplication rule and a rule provided to the document part by a given number of times;
an error notice document synthesizing means for synthesizing syntax errors of rules detected by the rule separating means for an error notice;
a processing invocation description synthesizing means for synthesizing the processing invocation descriptions and error notice for assessing an error notice page;
inserting/substituting means for inserting the first document part before or after a second document part subject to the insertion/substitution rule or substituting the first document part for the second document part;
and
an interpreter for sequentially executing the document processing rule string and synthesizing document parts by using the extracting means, the repetitive duplication means, and/or the inserting/substituting means.

10 more elements

A structured document processing system for processing a structured document containing one or more document parts and structurally represented, the processing being implemented by cooperative processing through computer communications on a distributed network system constituted of two or more networked computers, the structured document processing system comprising at least:

a file server that stores a structured document as a file of a predetermined format, and in response to the receipt of a file name, sends a corresponding file via the network;
and
a structured document processing server that performs document processing for the file,
wherein the structured document processing server comprises:
input means for inputting and analyzing a processing invocation description containing the file name of a first structured document in which a plurality of extraction rules specifying extraction of a document part are embedded and the file name of a second structured document in which a repetitive duplication rule or insertion/substitution rule is embedded, sending the file name contained in the processing invocation description to the file server via the network, and inputting a file corresponding to the file name from the file server via the network;
a processing invocation description analyzing means for analyzing processing invocation descriptions;
document processing means for analyzing the first structured document and the second structured document to generate a parse tree, scanning the parse tree and separating the document part, the document processing means retrieving the extraction rules embedded in the first structured document and the repetitive duplication or insertion/substitution rule from the second structured document and merging and sorting the rules to synthesize a document processing rule string based only on the extraction rules embedded in the first structured document and the repetitive duplication instruction or insertion/substitution rule embedded in the second structured document, and executing the document processing rule string to synthesize a structured document;
an error notice document synthesizing means for synthesizing syntax errors of rules detected by the rule separating means for an error notice;
a processing invocation description synthesizing means for synthesizing the processing invocation descriptions and error notice for assessing an error notice page;
and
output means for outputting the synthesized structured document or the document part obtained by the document processing means as a file of a given format via the network.

8 more elements

A processor-implemented structured document processing method for processing a structured document that is structurally represented and contains one or more document parts, the structured document processing method comprising the steps of:

(a) analyzing a first structured document, in which extraction rules specifying extraction of a document part are embedded, to generate a parse tree;
(b) analyzing a second structured document, in which a repetitive duplication rule specifying duplication of a document part by a given number of times or an insertion/substitution rule specifying insertion or substitution of a document part is embedded, and generating a parse tree;
(c) scanning the parse tree and separating the rules from the document part, to which the rules are provided, to retrieve the extraction rules are embedded in a first structured document and a repetitive duplication or insertion/substitution rule from a second structured document;
(d) merging and sorting the extraction rules retrieved from the first structured document and the repetitive duplication rule and/or insertion/substitution rule retrieved from the second structured, and synthesizing a document processing rule string, based only on the extraction rule embedded in the first structured document and the repetitive duplication or insertion/substitution rule embedded in the second structured document;
(e) executing the document processing rule string and retrieving a first document part subject to the extraction rules from the first structured document;
(f) executing the document processing rule string and repeatedly duplicating a document part subject to the repetitive duplication rule and a rule provided to the document part by a given number of times;
(g) executing the document processing rule string and inserting the first document part before or after a second document part subject to the insertion/substitution rule or substituting the first document part for the second document part;
and
(h) outputting a parse tree obtained as a result of execution of the steps (e) to (g).

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.