Hierarchical presearch type text search method and apparatus and

Abstract

A method and apparatus for performing a document information search to uncover specified text data containing a given search subject key word from a group of document text data stored in a memory. In the document information search method, two stages of presearch are carried out to perform the document search with respect to a desired subject key word. In a first stage of presearch, a character component table is generated in which the existence of character codes for every document is set forth with respect to all the character codes contained in the group of document text data of stored documents. The character component table is searched for all the character codes comprising a designated search subject key word to thereby extract all documents containing all the character codes comprising the search subject key word. Further, in the presearch step, all texts without the possibility of containing the search subject key word are eliminated. A comprehensive, narrowed text search is thereby performed in accordance with the search subject key word.