초록 ▼

A document indexing method and apparatus facilitates access to sequentially stored documents in a word processing system. The invention uses random access memory in the word processor to build a page index when the sequential data stream is first processed. The page index is then available so that s

A document indexing method and apparatus facilitates access to sequentially stored documents in a word processing system. The invention uses random access memory in the word processor to build a page index when the sequential data stream is first processed. The page index is then available so that subsequent access to previously processed pages is faster than conventional sequential access. The page index has associated with it an offset index having pointers to the actual entries in the page index. If the page index proves too small to store a index entry for every single page of a document, the offset index is reorganized to point to every other entry in the page index. Reorganization effectively doubles the span of pages covered by the page index and may be repeated a plurality of times to allow a sequentially stored document of arbitrary length to be indexed by a fixed length page index.

대표청구항 ▼

A method for maintaining an index of page entities in a sequential data stream representative of a multipage document including the steps of: storing said sequential data stream in a first storage; determining the locations of the page entities within said sequential data stream; storing the address

A method for maintaining an index of page entities in a sequential data stream representative of a multipage document including the steps of: storing said sequential data stream in a first storage; determining the locations of the page entities within said sequential data stream; storing the addresses of selected ones of said page entities in a second storage having a fixed number of positions for storage of a page entity in each position; storing page entity locators of said second storage in a third storage which has a number of locator positions equal to the fixed number of positions for storage of page entities in said second storage; reorganizing said second and third storage means by erasing selected positions of said page entity locators in said third storage means thereby releasing each page entity position in said second storage relating to said erased page entity locator in said third storage; entering new storage page entities into released positions in said second storage; entering new page entity locators into said third storage which are higher numbered than said erased locators; increasing the number of pages spanned by said second storage means by said reorganization.