Textual comparison system for locating desired character strings and delimiter characters

Abstract

Abstract A text comparator receives data stored in a mass storage device. The text comparator includes word logic, delimiter logic, set logic, set combination logic, proximity logic, and programming logic. The delimiter logic serves to monitor the characters transferred from the mass storage device and provides discrete signals depicting whether the character being transferred is a predefined delimiter character. The word logic serves to store data regarding predefined words (i.e., strings of characters) which are to be located and provides output word signals indicating when such predefined words have been located. The set logic receives the delimiter signals and word signals and provides output signals when selected words are located in the same sentence, same paragraph, etc., as desired. The set combination logic serves to combine the signals from the set logic in order to generate output signals in response to more complex search strategies than can be easily detected by the set logic. The proximity logic provides output signals indicating when predefined words detected by word logic or predefined set of words, as detected by set logic or a combination of this information, occurs within a predefined proximity. For example, proximity logic will determine if a first selected word occurs within N (where N is a selected integer) words of a second preselected word. The programming logic serves to receive search strategy instructions from the user and in response thereto provide the proper timing, addressing, and data signals the word logic, delimiter logic, set logic, set combination logic, and proximity logic to cause to be stored within these elements the information required to perform the desired search strategy.

Inventors

• 👤 James T. Skinner

Bibliographic Details