Patent Grant
7428695
The present invention relates generally to computer system text processing, and more particularly, to a system for automatic generation of arbitrarily indexed hyperlinked text.
Statement of the Problem
A ‘hyperlink’ is defined as a mechanism implemented via a computer system which allows a viewer to link (or jump) from a source location in a document to a destination location in the same or different document. The hyperlink is the combination of a display element or an indication (generally visual) that a hyperlink is available for a particular hyperlink source, and a computer program (typically a web browser) which finds and displays the hyperlink destination. A hyperlink thus provides a computer-assisted way for a human user to efficiently move between various locations containing information which is somehow related.
A significant problem with generating information for computer-based hyperlink systems is that an author (system developer) must review the material to be hyperlinked, identify topics to which to hyperlink, and must also manually set up the hyperlinks. This is a time-consuming and labor-intensive process. Some of the disadvantages of manually creating arbitrarily indexed hyperlinked documentation for include:
Since commands can be indexed in arbitrary groups (not necessarily alphabetically), hand editing is required. This is not desirable, since manual entry of the necessary hyperlinking tags frequently results in mistyped links, rendering the documentation useless.
Since care must be taken to ensure that hand-generated links are accurate, the process of creating documentation manually is very slow and tedious. Therefore, documentation may be out-of-date and no longer relevant.
Both of the above problems are exacerbated when there are hundreds of commands to hyperlink to each other, and also when the documentation is frequently updated. In addition, after the documentation is updated, it must be updated on the web server. This may be a problem if the person maintaining the documentation is not a web site administrator, and thus must wait until an administrator is available to make the necessary updates.
Furthermore, every time a change is made to a document of interest, the author must manually update links to the changed documentation.
What is needed is a system that automatically generates hyperlinks from indexed text in one document to one or more related topics in another document. There is also a need for a system that automatically updates the hyperlinks generated thereby to Internet-accessible web pages.
Solution to the Problem
The present system solves the above problems and achieves an advance on the field by providing a system that indexes text according to an arbitrary (i.e., not necessarily alphabetical) set of indices and automatically generates hyperlinks from each index to a related topic in a document. By automating the document linking and updating process, the chances of introducing errors into the hyperlinking process are greatly reduced, if not eliminated. Documentation is kept up-to-date and relevant. Furthermore, the documentation is instantly available over the Internet, since the present invention automatically copies all of the necessary files to the appropriate web server. In addition, it is no longer necessary to wait for the web server administrator to make updates to new or modified documentation.
A text file containing the text of the documentation of interest is used as input to a hyperlink processing program that generates a file containing links to all of the topics of interest in the documentation. In one embodiment of the present system, the hyperlink processing program performs the steps set forth below.
A category file is created that indicates an association between each of the topics and corresponding subjects included in each topic;
The present system also automatically updates the associated hyperlinks to other information located on the Internet-accessible web pages.
An anchor is an area within the content of a hypertext node (e.g. a web page) which is the source or destination of a hyperlink. A source anchor may be a word, phrase, image, or possibly the whole node. A destination anchor may be a whole node or some position within the node. Typically, clicking with a mouse on a source anchor causes the link to be followed (by the user's web browser) and the anchor at the destination end of the link to be displayed. A destination anchor is simply an anchor placed in a file at a hyperlink destination.
Anchors are typically highlighted in some way (either always, or when the mouse is over them), or they may be marked by a special symbol. In HTML (HyperText Markup Language), anchors are created with the <A..>..</A> construct. The opening A tag of a source anchor has an HREF (hypertext reference) attribute giving the destination in the form of a URL—usually a whole node or ‘page’. Consider the following hyperlink definition:
When a user clicks on the ‘hot area’ (source anchor) represented by “click here”, the document “next.html” will be loaded into the window or frame named “window.” The anchor (<a>) tag is the HTML feature for defining both the source and the destination of the hyperlink.
As shown in
The present example is set in the context of a web page 100 that is used for displaying ‘help’ information about a system. For example, the items depicted by indices Index(1)-Index(n) [reference numbers 101(10-101(n)] may be categories of system commands, such as “script” commands or “run” commands, for which a user desires information. One of the text entities, e.g., Index(1), may be a category that includes all of the commands (or other entities) for which a target text entity 111 may be displayed.
When a user of the present system selects a particular command category, by clicking a mouse on the category name, a list of all of the commands in the category are displayed in a separate window. For example, if Index(2) in window 108 indicates “run commands”, when the user selects (clicks on) the corresponding hot area 101(2) associated with Index(2), the text entities (sub-indices) Subindex(1), Subindex(2), and Subindex(3) in window 109 [shown by reference numbers 104(1)-104(3)] will then be displayed as a list of members of the selected category of commands such as “continue”, and “continue_one”, and “step”, respectively.
If the user then desires to see the specific help information, e.g., for the “step” command, the hot area [Subindex104(3)] for this command is selected (clicked on) in window 109, and the associated (‘target’) text 111 is displayed in main window 110 on the web page screen display 100. The mechanism by which these operations are performed is explained below in detail with reference to
Alternatively, the items depicted by text entities Index(1)-Index(n) may be topics in a document (instead of system commands), in which case the text entities Subindex(1)-Subindex(m) are related subtopics or subjects, i.e., names of members of the class denoted by the selected Index 101(*). In this case, the target text 111 displayed in target window 110 describes the selected subtopic or subject, rather than a system command.
The HTML frame for the screen display 100 is generated by copying common files, for example, a gif file for the basic web page frame graphics, a .css file that describes the frame, and the index.html frame (the display screen html frame that points to the text for windows 108/109. These common files are stored in a known location, such as in the Command Name directory 212, described below with respect to step 435.
At step 310, Help Text File 210 is then processed by a hyperlink processor program, the details of which are explained below with respect to
As shown in
The HTML code for the hyperlinks used in the present system is generated at this step. The Help Text file 210 and the Global Index file 214 are generated using two input files, the text documentation files in the initial document 205, and a manually generated Main Category file 215. From these two files, Global Index file 214, an Index Category file 230(*) for each category in the Main Category file 215, and a Command Name file 220(*) for each command in the Help Text file 210, are generated. These files are described in detail below.
Exemplary contents of Global Index file 214 are shown below in Table 2.
At step 412, a set of command (or subject) categories is determined, using arbitrary category names as desired. Step 412 may be performed at any time prior to creating the Main Category file in step 415, below.
At step 415, a Main (command) Category file 215 is manually created. Each of the commands (or alternatively, subjects), for which help text is generated, is manually assigned to one or more named categories, and placed in the Main Category file accordingly.
Each category is delimited by a percent sign in the first column of the line. The name of the category follows and has no restrictions. Each command that belongs in a particular category is listed on a separate line. Every command from the start of a particular category to the start of the next category is considered to be a command belonging to that particular category. Commands may belong to any number of categories, as shown in Table 3 below, wherein the “source” command is included in the “Script Commands” category, as well as in the category named “Test Category”.
An exemplary segment of Main Category file 215 is shown in Table 3, below.
At step 420, Main Category File 215 is read to determine the indices in which each command should be placed. At step 425, each command (or subject) in Main Category File 215 is associated with one or more indices, using the correspondence set forth in the file 215. At step 430, each command (or subject) is inserted into Data Structure 216, wherein each command is associated with the appropriate indices as indicated by the command-to-category association of step 425. The data structure shown below in Table 4 is a Perl language hash table, wherein each hash has multiple values per key, and each key is an array. It should be noted, however, that any type of array mechanism could be employed to provide the desired association between each command and one or more relevant categories.
At step 433, text in Help Text File 210 is copied to an intermediate working directory, referred to as Command Name directory 212. Global index file 214, command name files 220(*) and index category files 230(*) (described below) are also copied to this directory. A segment of a subdirectory named “Help”, containing HTML files for the individual command categories, as well as the command names, located in command name directory 212, is shown below.
The Run_Commands.nav.html file, for example, contains the following list of commands:
All of the files generated by the present system are located in the Command (subject) Name directory 212. At step 433, Index Category files 230(*) are present, but do not yet include any hyperlinks. Hyperlinks are added at step 470, described below.
At step 445, if a beginning (command name) delimiter (e.g., “Command”) is encountered in the data read from the Help Text file 210, then an Command Name file 220(*) is created for the term appearing in the line in the file 210 following the delimiter. Each Command Name file 220(*) contains HTML-encoded text for the associated command (or subject). To help illustrate the steps shown in
In the above example, it can be seen that the line following the beginning delimiter “Command” contains the text “step”. In accordance with the present system, a Command Name file 220(*) containing the HTML code for the present command is generated at step 460. In the present example, a Command Name file 220(*) named “step.html” containing the HTML code for the “step” command is generated. The HTML for step.html is shown below in Table 5.
At step 465, a hyperlink is created from Global Index File 214 to the appropriate Command Name HITML file 220(*). For example, the hyperlink for the “step” command might appear as:
The above hyperlink links Index(n) [reference no. 101(n)] in window 108 with the corresponding Subindex(m) [reference no. 104(m)] in window 109.
At step 470, hyperlinks are then created from the indices (categories) in data structure 216 to the associated Command Name files 220(*). As an example, the Index (category) file containing hyperlinks from the Run Commands category to the associated commands in that category is shown below in Table 6.
Note that, for example, the above hyperlink “step.html” links Subindex(m) [reference no. 104(m)] in window 109 with target window 110, to display corresponding help text 111 (i.e., the text display generated by step.html) therein.
A branch back to step 435 is then taken, where a check is made to determine whether there is any remaining unread data in Help Text file 210. If all of the data in the file 210 has been read, then the parsing of Help Text file 210 is completed, and processing resumes as shown in
At step 445, if a beginning delimiter is not encountered, then a check is made for a “Help” delimiter, identifying the beginning of the help text, at step 450. If a Help delimiter is found, then, at step 455, the help text is copied from Help Text file 210 to the appropriate Command Name HTML file 220(*). Processing of Help Text file 210 then continues, at step 435, until the end of the file is encountered. If a help delimiter is not found, then, by default, the remaining data (line) in the file must be an “End” delimiter, and the Command Name HTML file 220(*) that was just generated is closed, at step 451.
At step 315, the hyperlinked output generated in the above steps (shown in
While exemplary embodiments of the present invention have been shown in the drawings and described above, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that various embodiments of the present invention are possible. For example, the specific sequence of steps described above in
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5708825 | Sotomayor | Jan 1998 | A |
| 6182065 | Yeomans | Jan 2001 | B1 |
| 6253198 | Perkins | Jun 2001 | B1 |
| 6256631 | Malcolm | Jul 2001 | B1 |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20040205497 A1 | Oct 2004 | US |
