Software application and associated methods for generating a software layer for structuring semistructured information

Abstract

A wrapper builder application provides a variety of features for facilitating the creation of wrappers that are used to extract information from Web sites. In one aspect, the wrapper builder application provides a tool with which the process of creating a wrapper, which typically resembles coding, can be accomplished by a graphical design process involving drag and drop operations, clicking on objects, and filling in forms. A web viewer component provides a web browser frame, a source code frame, and a tree view frame, enabling the user to identify semistructured information of interest on Web sites. A wrapper editor component provides a graphical design environment in which a wrapper can be graphically constructed from operations and links. A wrapper model component provides a functioning internal representation of the graphically designed wrapper using Java objects and methods. A property editor component provides for the setting of properties that define the particular functionality of individual wrapper operations. A wrapper execution component provides features that enable the wrapper to be executed and debugged using a number of debugging tools. A wrapper serialization component provides a mechanism for storing and retrieving a wrapper for subsequent use and/or modification.