Method and search method for structured documents

Abstract

A registration method for structured documents includes the steps of: preparing correspondence data between a string and a string occurrence position within a structured document for each structured document, and additionally storing the correspondence data in an occurrence frequency extracting index; and preparing a list of a character, an element containing the character and a length of the element and additionally storing the list in an element length index. A search method for structured documents includes the steps of: inputting search conditions including a search term and an element for specifying a search range; decomposing the search term into a plurality of substrings, obtaining an occurrence frequency and an occurrence position of the search term using the plurality of substrings from the occurrence frequency extracting index; selecting a character from the search term, obtaining an element containing the character using the character from the element length index, and further extracting a length of the element within the search range; calculating a matching degree for the search conditions from the occurrence frequency and the occurrence position of the search term and the length of the element within the search range; and outputting the element containing the search term and the matching degree.