Search apparatus, search method, search program, and recording medium

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9697282-B2
Application number	US-201214360184-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 31, 2012
Priority date	Nov 24, 2011
Publication date	Jul 4, 2017
Grant date	Jul 4, 2017

Abstract

Even when a user does not perform an operation to specify a division of attribute, a search condition for an attribute of a division desired by the user can be specified. A search apparatus includes a first determination unit that, for each of a plurality of input words input by a user in one input area in which at least keywords can be input, determines based on an input words whether or not the input word is a first attribute word representing a content of an attribute of a predetermined first division of a plurality of divisions of attributes had by a search object, and a search unit that searches for a search object by using a content, as a search condition of attribute of the first division, represented by the input word which is determined to be the first attribute word by the first determination unit.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A search apparatus comprising:
at least one memory operable to store program code;
at least one processor operable to read the program code and operate as instructed by the program code, the program code including:
first determination code configured to cause the at least one processor to, for each of a plurality of input words input by a user in one input area in which at least keywords can be input, determine whether or not the input word is a first attribute word representing a content of an attribute of a predetermined first division of a plurality of divisions of attributes had by a search object, said determination including at least one of comparison of said input word to attributes stored in a database storage unit and determination of whether said input word includes a word representing a predetermined unit; and
search code configured to cause the at least one processor to search for a search object by using a content, as a search condition of attribute of the first division, represented by the input word which is determined to be the first attribute word by the first determination code, said search including comparison of said input word determined to be an attribute with a corresponding attribute field of potential search results;
wherein, the database storage unit hierarchically stores the attributes as nodes in a tree structure;
the program code further includes
second determination code configured to cause the at least one processor to determine whether there are two or more sibling attribute words, among the plurality of input words, which are siblings to each other in the tree structure and each of the two or more sibling attribute words corresponds to any one of the attributes stored in the database storage unit, and
generation code configured to cause the at least one processor to combine a search condition corresponding to each of the two or more sibling attribute words and at least one search condition corresponding to at least one input word, among the plurality of input words, other than the two or more sibling attribute words with logical AND to generate a search expression, when it is determined that there are the two or more sibling attribute words,
the search code is further configured to cause the at least one processor to search for search objects meeting each of two or more search expression generated by the generation code to identify a set of search results, and
the program code further includes providing code configured to cause the at least one processor to provide two or more sets of search results identified by the search code in a state where the two or more sets of search results are displayed separately.

2. The search apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein
at least one first division is a division of an attribute whose content is a value in a predetermined unit, and
the first determination code is further configured to cause the at least one processor to determine that the input word meeting a minimum requirement that the input word includes a word representing the unit is the first attribute word.

3. The search apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein
when the input word which is determined to be the first attribute word by the first determination code is further configured to cause the at least one processor to include a representation specifying a range of values, the search code is further configured to cause the at least one processor to search for a search object a value of the attribute of the first division of which is included in the range of values represented by the input word.

4. The search apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein
at least one of the divisions is a second division in which a content of an attribute is defined as a node in a tree structure and each content is hierarchically defined,
the search apparatus further includes
second determination code configured to cause the at least one processor to determine each input word whether or not the input word is a second attribute word corresponding to at least one of a plurality of words stored in said database storage unit storing a word representing a content of an attribute of the second division for each content in a tree structure, and
decision code configured to cause the at least one processor to, when there is a plurality of input words which are determined to be the second attribute words by the second determination code, decide a method of combining search conditions corresponding to the respective plurality of input words, which are determined to be the second attribute words, on the basis of a positional relationship between the input words in the tree structure, and
the search code is further configured to cause the at least one processor to search for a search object on the basis of a search condition obtained by combining search conditions corresponding to the respective plurality of input words, which are determined to be the second attribute words, by the at least one processor caused by the decision code.

5. The search apparatus according to claim 4 , wherein
when a certain plurality of the input words are siblings to each other, the decision code is further configured to cause the at least one processor to combine search conditions corresponding to the respective certain plurality of input words with each other with logical OR.

6. The search apparatus according to claim 5 , wherein
the search code is further configured to cause the at least one processor to search for a search object for each of the search conditions corresponding to the respective certain plurality of input words, and
the search apparatus further includes a providing code configured to cause the at least one processor to provide search object information indicating search objects found by the search code such that pieces of the search object information is displayed separately for the respective certain plurality of input words.

7. The search apparatus according to claim 4 , wherein
when a certain input word is an ancestor of at least one other input words in the tree structure, the decision code is further configured to cause the at least one processor deciding to combine a search condition corresponding to the certain input word and a search condition corresponding to the at least the one other input word with logical AND.

8. The search apparatus according to claim 4 , wherein
the search code is further configured to cause the at least one processor to decide that at least one of the input words which are determined to be the second attribute words by the second determination code is a keyword and decides a condition that character information stored in a character information storage includes the keyword to be a search condition, the character information storage storing character information related to a search object for each search object.

9. The search apparatus according to claim 4 , wherein
the search code is further configured to cause the at least one processor to use a content represented by at least one of a plurality of the input words which are determined to be the second attribute words by the second determination code as a search condition of attribute of the second division.

10. The search apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein
by determining whether or not the input word is the first attribute word for each first division, the first determination code is further configured to cause the at least one processor to identify an attribute of the first division whose content is represented by the input word, and
the search code is further configured to cause the at least one processor to use the input word for which the attribute of the first division is

Assignees

• Masuko Soh
• Rakuten Inc

Inventors

• Masuko Soh

Classifications

• G06F17/30864 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/30424

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/30722

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F16/245

  Query processing · CPC title

• G06F16/907 Primary

  Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually · CPC title