WO2002019154A1 - Virtual groups - Google Patents
Virtual groups Download PDFInfo
- Publication number
- WO2002019154A1 WO2002019154A1 PCT/US2001/012343 US0112343W WO0219154A1 WO 2002019154 A1 WO2002019154 A1 WO 2002019154A1 US 0112343 W US0112343 W US 0112343W WO 0219154 A1 WO0219154 A1 WO 0219154A1
- Authority
- WO
- WIPO (PCT)
- Prior art keywords
- data
- logical structure
- virtual
- document
- fields
- Prior art date
Links
Classifications
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
- G06F40/00—Handling natural language data
- G06F40/10—Text processing
- G06F40/12—Use of codes for handling textual entities
- G06F40/151—Transformation
- G06F40/16—Automatic learning of transformation rules, e.g. from examples
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
- G06F40/00—Handling natural language data
- G06F40/10—Text processing
- G06F40/12—Use of codes for handling textual entities
- G06F40/14—Tree-structured documents
- G06F40/143—Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
- G06F40/00—Handling natural language data
- G06F40/10—Text processing
- G06F40/12—Use of codes for handling textual entities
- G06F40/151—Transformation
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
- G06F40/00—Handling natural language data
- G06F40/10—Text processing
- G06F40/166—Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting
- G06F40/174—Form filling; Merging
Definitions
- the invention is related to the field of representation and translation of electronic documents.
- a field in some document forms can have multiple meanings.
- the meaning of a structure in a concrete document is apparent only by examining the data in fields.
- Such structures often repeat, such as loops in EDI or SAP IDOC documents, or elements that have content lists in XML.
- Such structures often have their meanings defined by one (or more) fields in the document (in XML, usually by values in attributes).
- Nl a "segment” (group) called “Nl” is shown.
- the hierarchy of a Nl segment can be represented as shown in Table 1 (this is a partial description):
- NlOl is a qualifier field, and all other fields hold data. The meaning of every data field here derives from the value in NlOl.
- NlOl is "ST"
- all other fields under Nl describe "Ship To" information: N102 might "mean” the person's name to ship to; N401 is the city name in the ship to, address and N402 is the state or province in the ship to address.
- NlOl is "BT”
- all the fields above - N102, N401, N402, etc. - hold “Bill To” information.
- Their meanings are analogous to when NlOl is "ST”: for example, if NlOl is "BT”, then N401 is the "Bill To” city name.
- NlOl The structure possible under Nl does not vary based on the qualifier code in NlOl.
- the meanings of the fields under Nl depend on their location and on the value of NlOl.
- mappings in a document can have more than one meaning. This means that mapping is hard to automate. Instead, the mappings must be manually done and require customized code, which does not allow reuse of mapping knowledge and rules.
- mapping and the mapping rules are one-off. That is, each time a user wants to define how to perform a document translation, similar code must be written and tested. This increases the time needed to define how to translate from the source to the target document.
- mapping and the mapping rules depend on user-written code. This makes it hard to automatically validate the integrity of the mapping. It also sets a minimum bar for the skill level of anyone trying to define a mapping, as they must then know all the document locations that might hold a particular meaning, and must be skilful enough to write the code to handle the case. This imposes a maintenance burden, as fixing a problem in a mapping requires altering code.
- the mapping and the mapping rules are translation- language dependent. The code that must be written and tested depends on the underlying translation engine that will translate the documents. Thus, mapping rules will be translation-engine dependent, and a translation defined for one translation engine will likely need adjusting to make the mapping work on a different translation engine. Moving a transform from one translation engine to another is difficult.
- the source and target mappings must be significantly different.
- the code for handling the case described above will differ whether the document is the source or the target document. If one has mapped from A to B, mapping from B to A requires major rework, as the code for the mapping would have to be rewritten using different logic.
- a method including disambiguating a source logical structure, a target logical structure having a similar format, wherein each logical structure has fields, wherein each field has a meaning based on data in the logical structure is disclosed.
- Figure 1 shows an example of an embodiment of a data structure for a document.
- Figure 2 shows another example of an embodiment of a data structure for a document.
- Figure 3 illustrates an example of a data structure used to create a virtual group.
- Figure 4 is an example of a network that uses virtual groups to translate documents.
- Figure 5 is an example of a computer system that uses virtual groups to translate documents.
- Figure 6 is an example of a translation system that uses virtual groups to translate documents.
- Figure 7 is an embodiment of a method for automatically doing translation using virtual groups.
- a method of using virtual groups to automatically generate a transform is disclosed.
- Using virtual groups in concrete documents that have structures that can have multiple meanings allows meta-data of each document to be represented so that each structure has a single meaning. This enables a transform to be automatically generated, as discussed below.
- Figure 1 depicts an example of a data structure for part of a document.
- Groupl has other groups under it, GroupA, GroupB and GroupC.
- GroupB has other groups under it, including Groupl, which has field Fieldl.l in it.
- the full path through this document, from the top as shown down to Field 1.1, can be described as:
- Fieldl.l holds the qualifier code that helps specify the meaning of other fields somewhere under GroupB. If the document in Figure 1 is the source in a mapping, the data of mapped fields other than Fieldl.l will be moved to the target. If Figure 1 describes a target document, Fieldl.l will have the correct value filled in, when other fields that have data are moved over from the source.
- Figure 1 therefore shows one example of an embodiment of meta-data.
- GroupB can appear multiple times. Each appearance is a particular instance of GroupB. Each instance of GroupB can have different data in its fields, and the meaning of all fields under the group depend on the value of NlOl.
- Figure 2 depicts a data structure for the same document as Figure 1, except that GroupB_ST is defined.
- GroupB_ST is defined.
- the Fieldl.l in the concrete document is known to have "ST" in it.
- the structure under a virtual group is identical as the structure in its "to virtualize” group.
- GroupB_ST has under it the same structure as GroupB.
- the qualifier code for the virtual group appears in the virtual group's name.
- GroupB_ST is an enabled virtual group. That is, it appears in the document. There are events, such as the user in the GUI, that trigger the virtual group to be enabled - inserted into the document, and the substructure under its "to virtualize" group made available under it. Similarly, a virtual group can be disabled, causing its structure to disappear from the document.
- Figure 3 illustrates a data structure including the information needed to create the virtual group of Figure 2.
- the information needed to generate a virtual group is:
- ToVirtualizeGroup the group to be "virtualized”. That is, the group whose structure is represented by the virtual group, and the group that has fields somewhere under it that are modified by the value of the qualifier field.
- QualifierField the field that holds the qualifier code.
- Qualifier the qualifier code, that when in the QualifierField in a concrete document, identifies the meaning of the fields under the ToVirtualizeGroup .
- Description - a textual description of the general meaning of the virtual group.
- mapping rules can be applied to meta-data to map data from a field under a virtual group in the source document to corresponding field(s) in the target document.
- a field under a virtual group in a source document can be treated just like any other field. Whatever operations - move, or any other mapping rule that might be applied to standard fields - apply to fields in a virtual group as well.
- a transform is the code used by a translation engine to convert one concrete document to another.
- a transform is generated by applying mapping rules to the meta-data of the source and target documents. After mapping rules and meta-data, including virtual groups, are defined, a transform can be automatically generated which performs the following processing on fields under virtual groups defined for a concrete target document: If the qualifier field holds the qualifier value map oilfields in the group or any subgroup according to the defined mapping rules to the target document. Else if the qualifier field holds any other value do nothing for this instance of the group.
- Virtual groups in a source document are conditional - the fields under them exist if and only if the qualifier field in a concrete document under the "to virtualize” group holds the qualifier value.
- the "to virtualize” group is GroupB
- the qualifier field is Groupl/Fieldl.l.
- a mapping from any field under GroupB_ST is conditional on GroupB/Groupl/Fieldl.l holding the qualifier value "ST”.
- mapping rules can be applied to meta-data to map from field(s) in the source document to a corresponding field under a virtual group in the target document.
- a field under a virtual group in a target document can be treated just like any other field. Whatever operations - move, or any other mapping rule that might be applied to standard fields - apply to fields under a virtual group.
- a transform is the code used by a translation engine to convert one concrete document into another.
- a transform is generated by applying mapping rules to meta-data of the source and target documents. After mapping rules and meta-data, including virtual groups, are defined, a transform can be automatically generated which performs the following processing on fields under virtual groups defined for a concrete target document:
- qualifier field for the virtual group is already set to a value other than the virtual field's qualifier value do nothing.
- a host computer system transmits and receives data over a computer network or standard telephone line.
- the steps of accessing, downloading, and manipulating the data, as well as other aspects of the present invention are implemented by a central processing unit (CPU) in the host computer executing sequences of instructions stored in a memory.
- the memory may be a random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), a persistent store, such as a mass storage device, or any combination of these devices. Execution of the sequences of instructions causes the CPU to perform steps according to the present invention.
- Figure 4 illustrates a system 400 in which a host computer 402 is connected to a remote computer 404 through a network 410.
- the network interface between host computer 402 and remote 404 may also include one or more routers, such as routers 406 and 408, which serve to buffer and route the data transmitted between the host and client computers.
- Network 410 may be the Internet, a Wide Area Network (WAN), a Local Area Network (LAN), or any combination thereof.
- the remote computer 404 may be a World-Wide Web (WWW) server that stores data in the form of 'web pages' and transmits these pages as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) files over the Internet network 410 to host computer 402.
- WWW World-Wide Web
- HTML Hypertext Markup Language
- host computer 402 runs a 'web browser', which is simply an application program for accessing and providing links to web pages available on various Internet sites.
- Host computer 402 is also configured to communicate to telephone system 412 through a telephone interface, typically a modem.
- FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a representative networked computer, such as host computer 402 illustrated in Figure 4.
- the computer system 500 includes a processor 502 coupled through a bus 501 to a random access memory (RAM) 504, a read only memory (ROM) 506, and a mass storage device 507.
- Mass storage device 507 could be a disk or tape drive for storing data and instructions.
- a display device 520 for providing visual output is also coupled to processor 502 through bus 501.
- Keyboard 521 is coupled to bus 501 for communicating information and command selections to processor 502.
- cursor control unit 522 is Another type of user input device, which may be a device such as a mouse or trackball, for communicating direction commands that control cursor movement on display 520.
- cursor control unit 522 is also coupled to processor 502 through bus 501.
- an audio output port 524 for connection to speakers that output audio signals produced by computer 500.
- bus 501 Further coupled to processor 502 through bus 501 is an input/ output
- Network interface device 523 is used by various communication applications running on computer 500 for communicating over a network medium and may represent devices such as an ethernet card, ISDN card, or similar devices.
- Modem 526 interfaces computer system 500 to a telephone line and translates digital data produced by the computer into analog signals that can be transmitted over standard telephone lines, such as by telephone system 412 in Figure 4.
- modem 526 provides a hardwired interface to a telephone wall jack, however modem 526 could also represent a wireless modem for communication over cellular telephone networks.
- the architecture of Figure 5 is provided only for purposes of illustration, and that a host computer used in conjunction with the present invention is not limited to the specific architecture shown.
- the network and computer systems shown in Figures 4 and 5 are used by the present invention to automatically generate a transform to convert the first document into the second documents.
- Documents are composed of discrete data elements called fields.
- a field is a named location in the document that holds data.
- a group is a named container in the document that holds several fields or subgroups.
- a map is a recipe that describes how the fields of one document (the source) are transformed into the fields of another (the target).
- Different document formats have many abstract concepts in common, even though they may represent these abstractions in different ways.
- a postal address can be represented in a variety of ways, depending on a given document format. The postal address can contain several fields, such as name, street and city. This collection of fields is an example of a group, as discussed with respect to Figures 1 and 2 above.
- a mapping engine 650 creates a translation map, as shown in Figure 6.
- the translation map is used by a translation engine 630 to convert, or translate a message from a source format to a target format.
- the translation map is a description of the fields in the source document that will be used to populate a field in the target document of the instructions to move and manipulate the source fields to produce the target document.
- Figure 6 shows an example of the groups and fields of two different documents, a source document format 610 and a target document format 620.
- the document is a purchase order.
- the document may convey any information that one person or business wants to send to another person or business.
- the source group 615 includes the source fields of name, address, city, description, price, quantity, and total.
- the target group 625 includes the fields name, location, information, cost, number, and amount. Although the formats of the fields in the source and target groups are structurally different, they have similarities and common abstractions such as name, amount, and place to ship the goods. Thus, the names of the fields in groups 615 and 625 may be different, such as "price” and "cost,” for example, but the data 617 and 627 contained in these fields functionally equivalent.
- a virtual group that corresponds to the source and target groups 615 and 625 can be used to capture these common abstractions using meta-data.
- meta-data associated with the source document can be used by the mapping engine to define a virtual group that corresponds to source group 615.
- the meta-data used to define the virtual group can be obtained from a data structure such as the data structure of Figure 3.
- the mapping engine can apply mapping rules to the meta-data associated with the source group, including the virtual group, to automatically generate a transform.
- the transform is then provided to the translation engine, which uses the transform to convert the source concrete document into the target document.
- Figure 7 shows an embodiment of a method for automatically generating a transform using virtual groups.
- One or more virtual groups for a first document are defined, step 710.
- the virtual groups are defined using meta-data contained in the data structure of Figure 3.
- One or more of these virtual groups are enabled, so that the enabled virtual groups appear in the first document, step
- One or more of the virtual groups may be disabled, so that the disabled virtual groups do not appear in the first document, step 730.
- Mapping rules to map data from fields in the first document to fields in a second document are defined, step 740. Then, a transform to convert the first document into the second document is automatically generated by applying the mapping rules to the meta-data, including the enabled virtual groups, of the first and second documents.
- the method of using virtual groups enables a mapping engine to automatically generate a mapping that describes how to map data between source and target documents. Automatically generating the mapping enables virtual groups as needed - if it discovers that a field under a virtual group that could potentially be enabled is required by the mapping, it enables the virtual group.
- mapping tends to be sufficient if a virtual group is involved.
- the user does not need to write code to identify when the data under a group has a particular meaning, or to put the qualifier code into a target virtual group in the target document.
- mapping from document A to B is much closer to mapping from B to A than mapping without virtual groups.
- mapping from B to A has been made closer to the transposition of the mapping from A to B.
- Mapping one direction then provides most of the information needed to map the other direction. If users had to write code to map from A to B, such a transposition would be far more work. With virtual groups, transposing a mapping is far less work.
- mapping to or from fields under a virtual group is translation- engine independent.
- the method of using virtual groups merely generates the code appropriate for a particular translation engine when writing out the transform in the way that translation engine requires.
- the method and apparatus can validate mappings to and from fields under virtual groups, as most cases do not require the user to write code. Because fewer mappings require the user to write code, mapping difference checking is easier. Eighth, a non-programmer can do most of the work of mapping.
Abstract
Description
Claims
Priority Applications (4)
Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
---|---|---|---|
AU2001253546A AU2001253546A1 (en) | 2000-08-29 | 2001-04-10 | Virtual groups |
CA002420401A CA2420401A1 (en) | 2000-08-29 | 2001-04-10 | Virtual groups |
JP2002523196A JP2004507839A (en) | 2000-08-29 | 2001-04-10 | Virtual group |
EP01927060A EP1328873A1 (en) | 2000-08-29 | 2001-04-10 | Virtual groups |
Applications Claiming Priority (2)
Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
---|---|---|---|
US65097600A | 2000-08-29 | 2000-08-29 | |
US09/650,976 | 2000-08-29 |
Publications (1)
Publication Number | Publication Date |
---|---|
WO2002019154A1 true WO2002019154A1 (en) | 2002-03-07 |
Family
ID=24611086
Family Applications (1)
Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
---|---|---|---|
PCT/US2001/012343 WO2002019154A1 (en) | 2000-08-29 | 2001-04-10 | Virtual groups |
Country Status (5)
Country | Link |
---|---|
EP (1) | EP1328873A1 (en) |
JP (1) | JP2004507839A (en) |
AU (1) | AU2001253546A1 (en) |
CA (1) | CA2420401A1 (en) |
WO (1) | WO2002019154A1 (en) |
Cited By (4)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
WO2004010325A1 (en) * | 2002-07-22 | 2004-01-29 | Contivo, Inc. | Method and system for transforming semantically related documents |
EP1715412A1 (en) * | 2005-04-18 | 2006-10-25 | Research In Motion Limited | System and method for simplification of data structure in wireless communications |
EP1715431A1 (en) * | 2005-04-18 | 2006-10-25 | Research In Motion Limited | System and method for developing mappings between different message structures |
US7743385B2 (en) | 2005-04-18 | 2010-06-22 | Research In Motion Limited | System and method for simplification of data structure in wireless communications |
Citations (5)
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US5119465A (en) * | 1989-06-19 | 1992-06-02 | Digital Equipment Corporation | System for selectively converting plurality of source data structures through corresponding source intermediate structures, and target intermediate structures into selected target structure |
US5173853A (en) * | 1990-03-14 | 1992-12-22 | Digital Equipment International Ltd. | Data format conversion |
US6014680A (en) * | 1995-08-31 | 2000-01-11 | Hitachi, Ltd. | Method and apparatus for generating structured document |
US6085196A (en) * | 1997-12-23 | 2000-07-04 | Ricoh Company, Ltd. | Object-oriented system and computer program product for mapping structured information to different structured information |
US6201072B1 (en) * | 1997-10-03 | 2001-03-13 | Macromed, Inc. | Biodegradable low molecular weight triblock poly(lactide-co- glycolide) polyethylene glycol copolymers having reverse thermal gelation properties |
-
2001
- 2001-04-10 WO PCT/US2001/012343 patent/WO2002019154A1/en not_active Application Discontinuation
- 2001-04-10 CA CA002420401A patent/CA2420401A1/en not_active Abandoned
- 2001-04-10 EP EP01927060A patent/EP1328873A1/en not_active Withdrawn
- 2001-04-10 AU AU2001253546A patent/AU2001253546A1/en not_active Abandoned
- 2001-04-10 JP JP2002523196A patent/JP2004507839A/en active Pending
Patent Citations (5)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US5119465A (en) * | 1989-06-19 | 1992-06-02 | Digital Equipment Corporation | System for selectively converting plurality of source data structures through corresponding source intermediate structures, and target intermediate structures into selected target structure |
US5173853A (en) * | 1990-03-14 | 1992-12-22 | Digital Equipment International Ltd. | Data format conversion |
US6014680A (en) * | 1995-08-31 | 2000-01-11 | Hitachi, Ltd. | Method and apparatus for generating structured document |
US6201072B1 (en) * | 1997-10-03 | 2001-03-13 | Macromed, Inc. | Biodegradable low molecular weight triblock poly(lactide-co- glycolide) polyethylene glycol copolymers having reverse thermal gelation properties |
US6085196A (en) * | 1997-12-23 | 2000-07-04 | Ricoh Company, Ltd. | Object-oriented system and computer program product for mapping structured information to different structured information |
Cited By (5)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
WO2004010325A1 (en) * | 2002-07-22 | 2004-01-29 | Contivo, Inc. | Method and system for transforming semantically related documents |
EP1715412A1 (en) * | 2005-04-18 | 2006-10-25 | Research In Motion Limited | System and method for simplification of data structure in wireless communications |
EP1715431A1 (en) * | 2005-04-18 | 2006-10-25 | Research In Motion Limited | System and method for developing mappings between different message structures |
US7743385B2 (en) | 2005-04-18 | 2010-06-22 | Research In Motion Limited | System and method for simplification of data structure in wireless communications |
US8185911B2 (en) | 2005-04-18 | 2012-05-22 | Research In Motion Limited | System and method for simplification of data structure in wireless communications |
Also Published As
Publication number | Publication date |
---|---|
EP1328873A1 (en) | 2003-07-23 |
AU2001253546A1 (en) | 2002-03-13 |
CA2420401A1 (en) | 2002-03-07 |
JP2004507839A (en) | 2004-03-11 |
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