Method of constructing a document type definition from a set of structured electronic documents

A computer executable method of converting the format of a source document to the format of a set of source documents, the source document conforming to a first document type definition, the set of source documents having documents each conforming to a target document type definition, the method comprising:

• examining the first document type definition and the target document type definition to identify patterns common to the source document and the set of source documents, each of the patterns being a substructure having a particular occurrence of an element and one or more of the sub-elements of the element, including identifying an element that is exists in each of the first source document and the set of source documents but has a different name in the first source document than in the set of source documents;
• mapping, without user intervention, elements and sub-elements in the common pattern of the source document to equivalent elements and sub-elements in the common pattern of the set of source documents, including mapping a first element in the first source document to a second element in the second source document based on the identified common patterns, the first element and the second element having different element names;
• and
• replacing tag names for the each of the elements and sub-elements in the common pattern of the source document with the equivalent tag names of the elements and sub-elements in the common pattern of the set of source documents.

A computer program residing on a computer-readable medium, the computer program comprising instructions operable to cause a computer system to:

• receive as input a first source document and a first document type definition for the first source document, the first source document conforming to the first document type definition;
• receive as input a target document type definition, the target document type definition being different from the first document type definition;
• examine the first document type definition and the target document type definition to identify common patterns in the document type definitions;
• each of the common patterns being a substructure having a particular occurrence of an element and one or more of the sub-elements of the element, and common patterns being patterns existing in each of the first document type definition and the target document type definition, including identifying an element that exists in each of the first and the target document type definitions but has a different name in the first document type definition than in the target document type definition;
• and
• use the common patterns identified by examining the first and the target document type definitions to map without user intervention elements and sub-elements in the first document type definition of the first source document to recode the first source document according to the target document type definition to equivalent elements and sub-elements, including instructions operable to cause the computer system to change a first tag name of a first element in the first source document to a different second tag name.

A computer system comprising:

• a storage device for storing a source document and a set of source documents, the source document having a format different from that of the set of source documents, the source document conforming to a first document type definition and the documents in the set of source documents each conforming to a target document type definition;
• and
• a computer processor configured by a mapping program to identify patterns common to the source document and the set of source documents by examining the first document type definition and the target document type definition to identify common patterns in the document type definitions, each of the common patterns being a substructure having a particular occurrence of an element and one or more of the sub-elements of the element, and map, without user intervention, elements and sub-elements in the common pattern of the source document to equivalent elements and sub-elements in the common pattern of the set of source documents, including to identify an element that is common to the first and second source documents but has a different name in the first source document than in the second source document and wherein to map elements includes to map a first element in the first source document to a second element in the second source document based on the identified common patterns, the first element and the second element having different element names.

A computer program residing on a computer-readable medium for converting the format of a source document to the format of a set of source documents, the source document conforming to a first document type definition, the set of source documents having documents each conforming to a target document type definition the computer program comprising instructions operable to cause a computer system to:

• examine the first document type definition and the target type definition to identify patterns common to the source document and the set of source documents, each of the patterns being a substructure having a particular occurrence of an element and one or more of the sub-elements of the element, including to identify an element that is exists in each of the first source document and the set of source documents but has a different name in the first source document than in the second source document;
• map, without user intervention, elements and sub-elements in the common pattern of the source document to equivalent elements and sub-elements in the common pattern of the set of source documents, including mapping a first element in the first source document to a second element in the second source document based on the identified common patterns, the first element and the second element having different element names;
• and
• replace tag names for the each of the elements and sub-elements in common pattern of the source document with the equivalent tag names of the elements and sub-elements in common pattern of the set of source documents.