United States Patent
US Patent 5671426: Method for organizing incremental search dictionary
US 5671426 · granted 1997-09-23
Abstract
The electronic dictionary disclosed herein is organized for expeditious search based on partial spelling by assigning words to blocks having a predetermined maximum size, the blocks being represented by respective partial spelling sequencer. The words are assigned to blocks by progressing through successive possible sequences in order and, for each sequence, determining the number of words in the set of words corresponding to that sequence. If the number of words is less than the maximum, all of the words in the set are assigned to a corresponding terminal block. Otherwise words up to a preselected number are assigned to a non-terminal block and the partial spelling sequence is extended. As a result of the organization only one call to the dictionary needs to be made for each extension of the sequence.
| Patent Number | 5671426 |
|---|---|
| Title | Method for organizing incremental search dictionary |
| Filed | 1993-06-22 |
| Granted | 1997-09-23 |
| Inventor(s) | Armstrong, III; John |
| Assignee | Kurzweil Applied Intelligence, Inc. |
| Number of Claims | 25 |
Abstract
The electronic dictionary disclosed herein is organized for expeditious search based on partial spelling by assigning words to blocks having a predetermined maximum size, the blocks being represented by respective partial spelling sequencer. The words are assigned to blocks by progressing through successive possible sequences in order and, for each sequence, determining the number of words in the set of words corresponding to that sequence. If the number of words is less than the maximum, all of the words in the set are assigned to a corresponding terminal block. Otherwise words up to a preselected number are assigned to a non-terminal block and the partial spelling sequence is extended. As a result of the organization only one call to the dictionary needs to be made for each extension of the sequence.
Claim 1
A method of organizing an electronic dictionary for expeditious search based on partial spelling by assigning words in the dictionary to blocks having a predeterminedmaximum size, said blocks being represented by respective partial spelling sequences, the assignment to blocks being in accordance with the method which comprises: progressing through successive possible sequences in character order and, for each such sequence; determining the number of words in the set of words incorporating the current sequence as initial characters; if the number of words in the set incorporating the current sequence is less than said maximum size, assigning all of the words in the set to a corresponding terminal block; otherwise, assigning words in the set up to a preselected number to a corresponding non-terminal block and extending the current sequence, whereby a user of the dictionary is provided with a listing of candidate words on the basis of a partial spelling which correspondingly identifies a block of words.
Claims
25 totalA method of organizing an electronic dictionary for expeditious search based on partial spelling by assigning words in the dictionary to blocks having a predeterminedmaximum size, said blocks being represented by respective partial spelling sequences, the assignment to blocks being in accordance with the method which comprises: progressing through successive possible sequences in character order and, for each such sequence; determining the number of words in the set of words incorporating the current sequence as initial characters; if the number of words in the set incorporating the current sequence is less than said maximum size, assigning all of the words in the set to a corresponding terminal block; otherwise, assigning words in the set up to a preselected number to a corresponding non-terminal block and extending the current sequence, whereby a user of the dictionary is provided with a listing of candidate words on the basis of a partial spelling which correspondingly identifies a block of words.