Efficient transformation program generation

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10776380-B2
Application number	US-201615331690-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 21, 2016
Priority date	Oct 21, 2016
Publication date	Sep 15, 2020
Grant date	Sep 15, 2020

Abstract

Methods, computer systems, computer-storage media, and graphical user interfaces are provided for facilitating data transformations, according to embodiments of the present invention. In one embodiment, a transformation function is executed using an example input value to obtain an initial output value. Thereafter, a plurality of supplemental transformation tools is applied to the initial output value to generate a plurality of intermediary output values. Based on a comparison of each of the intermediary output values to an example output value, the supplemental transformation tool that generated an intermediary output value having a greatest extent of similarity to the example output values is identified. The identified supplemental transformation tool and the transformation function are used to generate a transformation program that transforms the example input values to the desired form in which to transform data.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computing system comprising:
a processor; and
computer storage memory having computer-executable instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the processor, configure the computing system to facilitate data transformations using a set of example values including one or more example input values that indicate data values to be transformed and one or more example output values that indicate a desired form in which to transform data, the computing system configured to:
select a transformation function from among a set of functions identified as relevant among a set of available transformation functions;
execute the transformation function using an example input value to obtain an initial output value;
apply a plurality of supplemental transformation tools to the initial output value to generate a plurality of intermediary output values;
based on a comparison of each of the intermediary output values to at least one of the one or more example output values, identify the supplemental transformation tool that generated an intermediary output value having a greatest extent of similarity to the at least one of the one or more example output values; and
utilize the identified supplemental transformation tool and the transformation function to generate a transformation program that transforms the one or more example input values to the desired form in which to transform data.

2. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the set of functions identified as relevant is identified based at least in part on function input, and the transformation function is selected based on rank.

3. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more example input values and the one or more example output values are selected by a user.

4. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of supplemental transformation tools comprise a plurality of transformation functions, transformation tables, transformation operators, transformation services, or a combination thereof.

5. The computing system of claim 1 , further comprising compare each of the intermediary output values to the at least one of the one or more example output values.

6. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the identification of the supplemental transformation tool that generated an intermediary output value having a greatest extent of similarity to the at least one of the one or more example output values comprises:
generate a partial match score for each intermediary output value in accordance with an extent of similarity between the intermediary output value and the at least one of the one or more example output values; and

determine the intermediary output value having the greatest extent of similarity.

7. The computing system of claim 1 further comprising determine that the greatest extent of similarity exceeds a similarity threshold.

8. The computing system of claim 1 further comprising provide a suggestion of the transformation, wherein selection of the transformation program suggestion results in a data transformation.

9. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein each of the plurality of supplemental transformation tools perform a syntactic transformation.

10. One or more computer storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform a method for facilitating data transformations, the method comprising:
selecting a transformation function from among a set of functions identified as relevant among a set of available transformation functions;
executing the transformation function using an example input value to obtain an initial output value;
applying a plurality of supplemental transformation tools to the initial output value to generate a plurality of intermediary output values;
based on a comparison of each of the intermediary output values to at least one of the one or more example output values, generating a partial match score for each intermediary output value in accordance with an extent of similarity between the intermediary output value and the at least one of the one or more example output values;
determining that the intermediary output value associated with a greatest partial match score is within a threshold of similarity to the at least one of the one or more example output values; and
using the transformation function and the supplemental transformation tool producing the intermediary output value corresponding with the greatest partial match score to generate a transformation program.

11. The media of claim 10 , wherein the transformation tool comprises a transformation function, a transformation table, a transformation service, or a transformation operator.

12. The media of claim 10 , wherein the plurality of supplemental transformation tools comprise transformation functions, transformation tables, transformation services, transformation operators, or a combination thereof.

13. The media of claim 10 further comprising providing a suggestion of the transformation program to a user device.

14. The media of claim 10 , wherein the set of functions identified as relevant is identified based at least in part on function input, and the transformation function is selected based on rank.

15. A computer-implemented method for facilitating data transformations, the method comprising:
selecting a transformation function from among a set of functions identified as relevant among a set of available transformation functions;
executing the transformation function using an example input value to obtain an initial output value;
applying a plurality of supplemental transformation tools to the initial output value to generate a plurality of intermediary output values;
based on a comparison of each of the intermediary output values to at least one of the one or more example output values, identifying the supplemental transformation tool that generated an intermediary output value having a greatest extent of similarity to the at least one of the one or more example output values; and
utilizing the identified supplemental transformation tool and the transformation function to generate a transformation program that transforms the one or more example input values to the desired form in which to transform data.

16. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the set of functions identified as relevant is identified based at least in part on function input, and the transformation function is selected based on rank.

17. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more example input values and the one or more example output values are selected by a user.

18. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of supplemental transformation tools comprise a plurality of transformation functions, transformation tables, transformation operators, transformation services, or a combination thereof.

19. The computing system of claim 1 , further comprising comparing each of the intermediary output values to the at least one of the one or more example output values.

20. The computing system of claim 1 further comprising providing a suggestion of the transformation, wherein selection of the transformation program suggestion results in a data transformation.

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• He Yeye
• Ganjam Kris
• Narasayya Vivek Ravindranath
• Chaudhuri Surajit

Classifications

• G06F16/90344

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• G06F16/258 Primary

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