Extensible stylesheet designs using meta-tag and/or associated meta-tag information Number:7,146,564 from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) owispatent

Title: Extensible stylesheet designs using meta-tag and/or associated meta-tag information

Abstract: Techniques for extensible stylesheet designs using meta-tag and/or associated meta-tag Information are described. To generate a proper stylesheet (e.g., an XSL or XSLT file) from a source file (e.g., an XML file), all meta-tag and/or associated meta-tag Information are differentiated by attaching respectively unique identifiers to those that are otherwise identical. To facilitate user required operations on certain data in the source file, a document source path for the data is identified and inserted with one or more operators thus to form document source path information. The differentiated meta-tag and/or associated meta-tag Information and source path information are relied upon to generate one or more stylesheets.

Patent Number: 7,146,564 Issued on 12/05/2006 to Kim,   et al.

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Inventors:	Kim; Hong J. (Milpitas, CA), Huang; Evan S. (Cupertino, CA)
Assignee:	XMLCities, Inc. (Milpitas, CA)
Appl. No.:	10/324,992
Filed:	December 20, 2002

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Current U.S. Class:	715/513 ; 715/522
Current International Class:	G06N 3/00 (20060101)
Field of Search:	715/513,517,501.1,523 707/200,100

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Primary Examiner: Hong; Stephen
Assistant Examiner: Patel; Manglesh M.
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Zheng; Joe

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Parent Case Text

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CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims the benefits of the following U.S. provisional applications: U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/343,117, filed Dec. 21, 2001, and entitled "Method and Apparatus for Extensible Markup Language Conversion and Extensible Stylesheet Design Using Differentiated Associated Meta-Tag Information"; U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/349,924, filed Jan. 17, 2002, entitled "Method and Apparatus for Manipulating Meta-tag Information using Document Object Path Information"; and U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/349,957, filed Jan. 17, 2002, entitled "Extensible Markup Language Conversion and Stylesheet Design Using Meta-Tag Information and/or Associated Meta-Tag Information", all of which are hereby incorporated by reference for all purposes. This application is also related to co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/754,969, entitled "Method and apparatus for utilizing document type definition to generate structured documents" which is hereby incorporated by reference.

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Claims

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We claim:

1. A method for designing extensible stylesheets, the method comprising: receiving in a computing device a file including a plurality of elements, each of the elements being a data portion between a pair of tags; identifying one of the elements as a reference; determining if any of the elements except for the reference in the file are identical to the reference; inserting one of identifiers to each of some of the elements when the some of the elements are determined to be identical to the reference, wherein each of the identifiers is different from each other, and thus the some of the elements are uniquely differentiated; receiving user required operations on the some of the elements; identifying a document object path (DOP) for each of the some of the elements; creating document object path information (DOPI) for each of the some of the elements, wherein the document object path information (DOPI) includes one or more of the user required operations, and wherein, when the file is used to generate another file, the elements are uniquely identified and converted accordingly to different objects in the another file.

2. The methodof claim 1, wherein each of the elements pertains to either one of meta-tag information and associated meta-tag information.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the meta-tag information of an element pertains to information about association of the element with another element, data or attributes in the file.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the associated meta-tag information of an element pertains to information about data from a source file and includes or is used to show the information about meta-tag information of an element in the file; and wherein the associated meta-tag information is replaced accordingly with corresponding meta-tag information when the another file is being generated.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the meta-tag information includes a document object path and source information.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the meta-tag information is expressed in a form of {source information:document object path}.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the creating of the document object path information (DOPI) includes inserting the one or more of the user required operations in the document object path (DOP).

8. The method of claim 7, wherein each of the user required operations is expressed as a pair of tags to enclose a piece of data in the file, wherein the piece of data is operated accordingly when the another file is being generated.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the user required operations include at least two types of operations, both of the operations can be cascaded to operate a piece of selected data in the file.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the inserting of one of identifiers to each of some of the elements comprises: providing a dialog interface to display some of the elements having identical counterparts in the file; and receiving inputs from a user to attach the one of the identifiers to each of the some of the elements such that the some of the elements are uniquely differentiated.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the another file is a stylesheet in accordance with a desired presentation from the file.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the file is an XML file and the stylesheet is either one of XSL or XSLT file.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the desired presentation is a display of a structured or tagged file from a browser or an application.

14. A method for designing extensible stylesheets, the method comprising: identifying an element as a reference in an XML file after the XML file is parsed in a computing device, wherein the XML file includes a plurality of elements, each element being a data portion between a pair of tags, and the element is one of the elements in the XML file; search in the XML file for any of the elements identical to the reference; labeling explicitly in the XML file some of the elements identical to the reference by respective identifiers such that the elements are respectively differentiated; receiving user required operations on the some of the elements; inserting an operator in accordance with the user required operations in the document object path of the some of the elements to enclose a piece of data, wherein each of the elements pertains to either one of meta-tag information and associated meta-tag information, each of the meta-tag information and associated meta-tag information includes a document object path; and wherein, when the file is used to generate a stylesheet in accordance with a presentation of another file, the meta-tag information or associated meta-tag information in the file are converted accordingly to different objects in the stylesheet.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the presentation of is a display of the another file in a browser or an application.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the another file is a structured or tagged file.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein the labeling explicitly in the XML file some of the elements comprises inserting a different identifier in each of the some of the elements such that the some of the elements are visually differentiated.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein the labeling explicitly in the XML file some of the elements comprises: determining an initial identifier; inserting the initial identifier into a first one of the some of elements identical to the reference; generating another identifier by incrementing the initial identifier; inserting the another identifier into a second one of the some of elements identical to the reference; and wherein the first and the second elements are differentiated in the file.

19. A software product including computer program code for designing extensible stylesheets, the software product embodied on a computer readable medium executable in a computing device operating under a windows operating system, the software product comprising: program code for receiving a file including a plurality of elements, each element being a data portion between a pair of tags; program code for identifying one of the elements as a reference; program code for determining if any of the elements except for the reference in the file are identical to the reference; program code for inserting one of identifiers to each of some of the elements when the some of the elements are determined to be identical to the reference, wherein each of the identifiers is different from each other, and the some of the elements are uniquely differentiated; program code for receiving user required operations on the some of the elements; program code for identifying a document object path (DOP) for each of the some of the elements; program code for creating document object path information (DOPI) for each of the some of the elements, wherein the document object path information (DOPI) includes one or more of the user required operations, and wherein, when the file is used to generate another file, the elements are differentiated and converted accordingly in the another file.

20. The software product of claim 19, wherein each of the elements pertains to either one of meta-tag information and associated meta-tag information.

21. The software product of claim 20, wherein the meta-tag information of an element pertains to information about association of the element with another element, data or attributes in the file, and wherein the associated meta-tag information of an element pertains to information about data from a source file and includes or is used to show the information about meta-tag information of an element in the file.

22. The software product of claim 21, wherein the meta-tag information includes a document object path and source information.

23. The software product of claim 22, wherein the meta-tag information is expressed in a form of {source information:document object path}.

24. The software product of claim 19, wherein the program code for creating the document object path information includes program code for inserting the one or more of the user required operations in the document object path.

25. The software product of claim 24, wherein each of the user required operations is expressed as a pair of tags to enclose a piece of data in the file, wherein the piece of data is operated accordingly when the file is being generated to the another file.

26. The software product of claim 25, wherein the user required operations include at least two types of operations that are cascaded to operate a piece of selected data in the file.

27. The software product of claim 19, wherein the program code for inserting one of identifiers to each of some of the elements comprises: program code for providing a dialog interface to display some of the elements having identical counterparts in the file; and program code for receiving inputs from a user to attach the one of the identifiers to each of the some of the elements such that the some of the elements are differentiated.

28. The software product of claim 19, wherein the another file is a stylesheet in accordance with a desired presentation from the file.

29. The software product of claim 19, wherein the file is an XML file and the stylesheet is either one ofXSL or XSLT file.

30. The software product of claim 29, wherein the desired presentation is a display of a structured or tagged file from a browser or an application.

31. A software product including computer program code for designing extensible stylesheets, the software product embodied on a computer readable medium executable in a computing device operating under a windows operating system, the software product comprising: program code for identifying an element as a reference in an XML file after the XML file is parsed, wherein the XML file includes a plurality of elements, each element being a data portion between a pair of tags, and the element is one of the elements; program code for searching in the XML file for any of the elements identical to the reference; program code for labeling explicitly in the XML file some of the elements identical to the reference by respective identifiers such that the elements are differentiated; program code for receiving user required operations on the some of the elements; program code for inserting an operator in accordance with the user required operations in the document object path of the some of the elements to enclose a piece of data, wherein each of the elements pertains to either one of meta-tag information and associated meta-tag information, each of the meta-tag information and associated meta-tag information includes a document object path; and wherein, when the file is used to generate a stylesheet in accordance with a presentation of another file, the meta-tag information or associated meta-tag information in the file are converted accordingly to different objects in the stylesheet.

32. The software product of claim 31, wherein the presentation of is a display of the another file in a browser or an application.

33. The software product of claim 32, wherein the another file is a structured or tagged file.

34. The software product of claim 32, wherein the program code for labeling explicitly in the XML file some of the elements comprises program code for inserting a different identifier in each of the some of the elements such that the some of the elements are visually differentiated.

35. The software product of claim 31, wherein the labeling explicitly in the XML file some of the elements comprises: program code for determining an initial identifier; program code for inserting the initial identifier into a first one of the some of elements identical to the reference; program code for generating another identifier by incrementing the initial identifier; program code for inserting the another identifier into a second one of the some of elements identical to the reference; and wherein the first and the second elements are differentiated in the file.

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Description

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BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention generally relates to the area of document processing and electronic publishing system, and more particularly, relates to techniques for designing extensible style sheets using meta-tag information and/or differentiated associated meta-tag information, where the designed extensible style sheets are for various presentations and information exchange.

2. Description of the Related Art

The Internet is a rapidly growing communication network of interconnected computers around the world. Together, these millions of connected computers form a vast repository of hyperlinked information that is readily accessible by any of the connected computers from anywhere and anytime. With millions of web pages being created and added to this vast repository each day or year, there is a tremendous need to quickly and easily convert documents, such as presentations, data sheets or brochures, into a format presentable to and accessible by other applications or devices on the Internet.

It is well known that a preferable format that is presentable to a web browsing application (e.g. a browser) is in a markup language, such as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Extensible Markup Language (XML), Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) or Wireless Markup Language (WML). Files or documents that are so composed, edited or managed for web browsing applications are commonly referred to as structured files or documents. Among the structured documents, a content-oriented structured document like XML or SGML is capable of supporting any markup tags from document type definitions (DTD) or schema while a presentation document in HTML or WML can only support a fixed set of markup tags.

The demand for dynamically converting the content-oriented structured documents with proper style transformation for a particular request medium opens a new paradigm for information exchange and storage. For example, contents in a website are stored in XML formats. If a web browser (e.g., Netscape or IE) in a desktop computer requests information form the website, the website is preferably to convert the contents in XML into converted contents in HTML and subsequently sends the converted files back to the browser. If a portable device (e.g. a PDA or internet-enabled cell phone) requests information by a micro-browser from the same website, the website is preferably to convert the contents in XML into converted contents in WML and send the converted files back to the micro-browser. Furthermore, the website can also convert the internal XML into another type of XML so as to exchange information between websites.

Dynamically converting the content-oriented structured documents into desired presentation requires what is called a style sheet, a term extended from print publishing to online media. A style sheet is a definition of a document's appearance in terms of such elements as: a default typeface, size, and color for headings and body text, how front matter (preface, figure list, title page, and so forth) should look and how all or individual sections should be laid out in terms of space.

One of the methods of creating a style sheet for an XML file to an HTML file involves matching the data or attributes of HTML elements with the associated meta-tag information in the XML file, e.g., data or attributes of XML elements. A user can create a new source HTML file by inserting the associated meta-tag information of the source XML file as the data or attributes of the elements of the source HTML file. Then the user can manipulate/add/subtract the HTML tag or tags around the associated meta-tag information of the source XML file in the source HTML file for customizing the HTML tags using WYSISWYG HTML editors such as Microsoft FrontPage, macromedia Dreamweaver, or Adobe goLive so that the customized HTML tags comprises the desired outcome of the target XSL file.

Once desired customized HTML tags are made around the inserted associated meta-tag information of the XML file in the HTML file, a software process can use a matching algorithm to identify the particular XML data or attributes by matching the associated meta-tag information of the HTML elements. By identifying the particular XML data or attributes, the software process may automatically generate meta-tag information that hold the information about the relationships of the XML data or attributes in respect to its parent elements, its sibling elements, and its relationship with the root element. The location of the associated meta-tag information and its relationship with HTML tags may also be used to insert the corresponding meta-tag information at a matched location in the source HTML file in respect to its relations to the customized HTML tags. The combination of the meta-tag information with the customized HTML tags can then be used to generate the style sheet or a target XSL file.

However, this process can be problematic if an XML file contains elements with the same associated meta-tag information. FIG. 1A shows an example that has two identical elements 10, and 14. A software process that relies on matching the associated meta-tag information would not be able to differentiate as to whether the correct associated meta-tag information is from 10 or from 14 of FIG. 1A.

Today, most websites are written in HTML, and there is a growing need for converting the HTML fifes into XML files and extensible style sheet language for transformation (XSLT) files to fully utilize the benefit of the XML has to offer. A similar problem may be experienced when an HTML file is converted to an XML file. FIG. 1B shows an HTML file. If a user wishes to convert a data portion 16 as <xsl:value of select="root/book/author/text( )"/>, then a software process would not be able to differentiate which one of the data portions 14 or 16 of the HTML file should be modified with meta-tag information since both data portions 14 or 16 are identical.

There is therefore a need for solutions that can uniquely identify all the associated meta-tag information in a markup language file (e.g., an XML file).

Since the introduction of the XML, XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation) has been proposed as a separate subset of XML for displaying via HTML the content of an XML file into various media such as web-browsers, hand-held devices, and wireless phones. One of the methods of creating an extensible style sheet for an XML document involves matching data or attributes of an HTML document with the associated meta-tag information, i.e. data or attributes of the XML document. Thus, a new source HTML document can be created by inserting the associated meta-tag information of the source XML document as the data or attributes of the source HTML document. Then the user can manipulate/add/subtract the HTML tags around the associated meta-tag information of the source XML document in the source HTML document for customizing the HTML tags using WYSISWYG HTML editors such as Microsoft FrontPage, macromedia Dreamweaver, or Adobe goLive so that the customized HTML tags comprises the desired looks and feels of the target XSLT for the given XML document.

Once desired customized HTML tags are made around the inserted associated meta-tag information of the XML document as an HTML document, a software process can use a matching algorithm so that the matched associated meta-tag information of the HTML elements can be used to identify the corresponding XML data or attributes. By identifying the particular XML data or attributes, the software process can automatically generate meta-tag information that hold the information about the relation of the XML data or attributes with respect to its parent elements, its sibling elements, or its relationship with the root element. The location of the matching associated meta-tag information and its relationship with HTML tags can also be used to insert the corresponding meta-tag information at the matched location in the source HTML document with respect to its relations to the customized HTML tags. The combination of the meta-tag information with the customized HTML tags can then be used to generate the target XSL file.

However, this process can be problematic if the meta-tag information contains only the information about the relationship of the XML data and attributes from the elements. An XSLT contains rich sets of functionalities such as <xsl:for-each/> that can't be described without any information from user's requirements for functionalities. Thus, there is another need for creating an XSLT that reflects uers required operations and functionalities.

To accommodate the growing need for converting the HTML files into XML files and extensible style sheet language for transformation (XSLT) files to fully utilize the benefit of the XML has to offer, there is still another need to streamline the conversion process from one markup language file (e.g. HTML) to another markup language file (e.g. XML).

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

This section as well as the abstract is for the purpose of summarizing some aspects of the present invention and to briefly introduce some features or preferred embodiments. Simplifications or omissions may be made to avoid obscuring the purpose of the section or the abstract. Such simplifications or omissions are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention.

The present invention pertains to the use of meta-tag and/or associated meta-tag information to design extensible stylesheets (XSL) for transferring a source XML file into a target file. According to one aspect of the present invention, to generate a proper stylesheet (e.g., an XSL or XSLT file) from a source file (e.g., an XML file), all meta-tag and/or associated meta-tag Information are differentiated by attaching respectively unique identifiers to those that are otherwise identical. To facilitate user required operations on certain data in the source file, a document source path for the data is identified and inserted with one or more operators thus to form document source path information. The differentiated meta-tag and/or associated meta-tag Information and source path information are relied upon to generate one or more stylesheets.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a graphic user interface environment is provided to allow a user to visually manipulate or operate the meta-tag and/or associated meta-tag information. The graphic user interface environment including at least two displays is provided. One of the displays is from a commonly used browser or an application to display a target file including a plurality of objects and the other display is used to facilitate the editing of a tree structure. Each of the nodes in the tree structure is associated with one of the objects by associated meta-tag information. Based on the tree structure, a source can be generated. Together with the source file, the stylesheet can be designed in accordance with the displayed target file.

According to one embodiment, when a target file is displayed (e.g., in a browser or authoring tool), the output presentation includes a number of objects, such as a picture or a sentence or a group of words. Some of the objects are dynamic in a sense that these objects are respectively linked with source elements or objects in the source file so that any changes to the source objects will be dynamically reflected in the target file. Each of the meta-tags inserted into a tree structure specifies a relationship to the corresponding source object in the source file. As one of the features in the present invention, unique ways to place the meta-tags are provided depending on implementation and application.

Once the meta-tags are created for the target file, a converting module generates a resultant XSL file in reference to the target file. The converting module is configured to search for the meta-tags and subsequently generates the XSL for the target file. To ensure that all the meta-tag and/or associated meta-tag information can be treated accordingly, a differentiating process is configured to differentiate those meta-tag or associated meta-tag information by attaching respective unique identifiers.

The present invention may be implemented as a method, a system, a software product or other forms. One of the objects, benefits and advantages in the present invention is to provide generic and easy-to-use solutions for designing stylesheets.

Objects, benefits and advantage together with the foregoing are attained in the exercise of the invention in the following description and resulting in the embodiments illustrated in the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with regard to the following description, appended claims, and accompanying drawings where:

FIG. 1A shows an example that has two identical elements that can cause problems when being converted to a stylesheet;

FIG. 1B shows that an HTML file has two identical elements that can cause problems when a stylesheet is generated in accordance with the HTML file;

FIG. 1C shows a basic system configuration in which the present invention may be implemented in accordance with a preferred embodiment;

FIG. 2A is an example of document type definitions (DTD) for recipe-type documents;

FIG. 2B shows an extensible markup language (XML) file based on the document type definitions (DTD) in FIG. 2A;

FIG. 3A shows an extensible stylesheet language (XSL) file, which transfers the XML file in FIG. 2B into an HTML file;

FIG. 3B shows a screenshot of the transferred HTML file of FIG. 3A;

FIG. 3C shows an XSL file, which transfers the XML file in FIG. 2B into a WML file;

FIG. 3D shows an XSL file, which transfers the XML file in FIG. 2B into another XML file;

FIG. 4A shows an HTML file having contents that can be used as respective associated meta-tag information;

FIG. 4B shows an XML file that contains or can be used to show the information about its meta-tag information;

FIG. 4C shows a resultant XSL file in accordance with FIG. 4A and FIG. 4B;

FIG. 4D shows a corresponding tree representation of the DOPI for the data block 420 in FIG. 4A;

FIG. 4E shows a DOM tree representation of an XML document that contains multiple recipe elements, and ingredient elements;

FIG. 5A shows an XML file with </root> as a root element and includes two identical data, each is respective associated meta-tag information;

FIG. 5B shows that an element having data "C++ Programming" used as a reference and another element is now attached with an identifier "-A1" such that the modified element becomes as "C++ Programming-A1";

FIG. 5C shows an example that can be displayed in a dialog box to show that there are two elements with identical content (e.g., data or attributes);

FIG. 6A shows a block diagram of converting an XML file to an XSLT file in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 6B shows a corresponding flowchart or process in accordance with the block diagram in FIG. 6A;

FIG. 7A FIG. 7D show, respectively, progresses of inserting user required operations on desire data and resultant XSL files;

FIG. 7E shows a flowchart or process of inserting user required operations in a markup language file;

FIG. 8A FIG. 8C show, respectively, progresses of generating an XML tree in accordance of a DTD pool or file (not shown), editing of the XML tree and associated meta-tag information;

FIG. 8D shows an example of HTML document that contains an element with broken XML text data and shows an element <p/> that contains the text data "C++ Programming" that is further broken into two separate text data "C++" and "Programming";

FIG. 9A illustrates a block diagram in which a target file with meta-tag information is created by an authoring tool and converted into one or more XSL files through a converter;

FIG. 9B illustrates a block diagram in which a target file with associated meta-tag information is created by an authoring tool and converted into one or more XSL files through a converter;

FIG. 9C illustrates a block diagram in which a target file with meta-tag information and/or associated meta-tag information is created by source files, where the source files may include one or more HTML files and the source files are one or more XML files for content management; and

FIG. 9D shows a flowchart of generating one or more stylesheets from one or more source files (e.g., HTML files) according to one embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. However, it will become obvious to those skilled in the art that the invention may be practiced without these specific details. The description and representation herein are the common meanings used by those experienced or skilled in the art to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. In other instances, well-known methods, procedures, components, and circuitry have not been described in detail to avoid unnecessarily obscuring aspects of the present invention.

Reference herein to "one embodiment" or "an embodiment" means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment can be included in at least one embodiment of the invention. The appearances of the phrase "in one embodiment" in various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment, nor are separate or alternative embodiments mutually exclusive of other embodiments. Further, the order of blocks in process flowcharts or diagrams representing one or more embodiments of the invention do not inherently indicate any particular order nor imply any limitations in the invention.

Embodiments of the present invention are discussed herein with reference to FIGS. 1 9E, in which like numerals refer to like parts throughout the several views. However, those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that the detailed description given herein with respect to these figures is for explanatory purposes as the invention extends beyond these limited embodiments.

FIG. 1C shows a basic system configuration in which the present invention may be implemented in accordance with a preferred embodiment. Content-oriented documents containing information, such as product descriptions, functions lists and price schedules, may be created using an authoring tool executed on a computer 100. These documents may be in XML (Extensible Markup Language) which is being promoted to be used to create common information formats and share both the format and the data on the World Wide Web, intranets, and elsewhere. XML is "extensible" because, unlike HTML, the markup symbols are unlimited and self-defining.

The extensible stylesheets (or XSL) to transfer these documents into various presentations may be created in a computing device 102, which may be a server station or a desktop computer loaded with an executable version of one embodiment implementing the present invention.

In one setting, computer 100 and computing device 102 are inseparable and perform document conversion process that ultimately represents contents in a format of markup language such as WML or HTML. In one application, the content-oriented documents represented in XML and transformations in XSL become available through a private network 110 to a service server 104 that hosts what is generally referred to as a www (world wide web) site.

In one situation, a user uses a desk computer 106 that operates a browsing application and is coupled to data network 108 to access files on service server 104. These requested XML files will be converted into HTML files by proper XSL files and be sent back to the desktop computer. In another situation, a user uses a PDA 112 that operates a WAP browsing application and is coupled to data network 108 (perhaps via a wireless network) to access files on service server 104. These requested XML files will be converted into WML files by the proper XSL files and be sent back to the PDA 112 provided that PDA 112 is WAP-compliant.

As will be explained below, the present invention is not limited to the Internet applications. It may be practiced in individual computers in which users often create the XSL files to convert the XML files into the HTML or WML files off-line. Since the contents and presentations are separated, users can easily create another set of XSL files for different look and feel.

According to one embodiment, a content-oriented document such as XML starts with document type definitions (DTD) or schema to define document elements. FIG. 2A illustrates an example of DTD 200 for "recipe-type" documents, in which a document is to be broken down into structures of document elements. A particular document element 202 may contain other document elements and attributes. Another example of the document element 204 contains only the parsed character data. FIG. 2B shows an example of an XML file, where information is represented in parsed data elements defined in document type definitions (DTD) as given in FIG. 2A.

An XML file can be transferred into various presentations using extensible stylesheets (XSL). An example of an XSL file which converts the XML file 206 into an HTML file is given in FIG. 3A. In particular, block 302 shows that the top level <html> tag is created when the XSL file matches the tag "document" and block 304 shows how to assign the value from the source XML file to the target HTML file. A corresponding screenshot of the resulted HTML from a browser application (e.g. Microsoft Internet Explorer) is given in FIG. 3B.

Another example of an XSL file which converts the XML file 206 into a WML file is given in FIG. 3C. In particular, block 314 shows that the top level <wml> tag is created when the XSL file matches the root element, block 312 shows how to assign the "title" value from the source XML file to the target WML file, and block 316 shows how to assign the "name" attribute of the "originate" element from the source XML file to the target WML file.

Other than transferring an XML file into various presentations, an XSL file can also transfer an XML file into another XML file with different DTD or schema. The primary reason for this type of transformation is for information exchange between different systems. FIG. 3D shows an example of an XSL file, which converts the XML file 206 into another XML file of a list of the recipe titles. In particular, block 320 shows that the top level <recipe_title_list> tag is created when the XSL file matches the "document" element and block 322 shows how to assign each of the "title" values in the source XML file to the <recipe_title> tag in the target XML file.

From the above XSL examples, one can see that an XSL file is a combination of a target file (e.g. in HTML, WML, or XML) and <xsl:> tags to associate the information from the source XML file and/or through the source XML's DTD or schema file. One aspect of the present invention pertains to techniques for designing XSL files. According to one embodiment, an authoring tool is employed. The authoring tool may be FrontPage for HTML, Intava Gravity Professional for WML, and XMLeditor for XML. With one of these WYSIWYG authoring tools, a user can design the look-and-feel of a target file or an output presentation with an XML editor and a user can design a target XML tree showing the hierarchical relationships among the source objects (e.g. document elements), which is described in detail in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/754,969. Then, the user can insert meta-tag information that specifies the corresponding source information, right in the authoring tools for the target file. The target file with meta-tag information will be loaded into an XSL converting module that automatically generates the resultant XSL files in reference to the target file or presentations.

As used herein, meta-tag information means information or a piece of data from an XML document that contains information about its association with a particular element, data, or attribute in the XML document, and the relation of its elements, data, and attributes in regards to other element, data, and attributes of the XML document. For example, meta-tag information for a data node is {xc_xslt: document/recipe/title/text( )} in FIG. 4B, where "document/recipe/title/text( )" shows the location of the data node and the relation of its parent node, i.e. the "title" node with other elements of the XML document.

Similarly, as used herein, associated meta-tag information means information or a piece of data from a source file, such as "CORN WITH LEMON, ORANGE, AND THYME" in the HTML file of FIG. 4A, that can be used to associate meta-tag information of an XML document such as the meta-tag information {xc_xslt: document/recipe/title/text( )} in FIG. 4B. And the meta tag information will be converted into an XSLT element such as <xsl:value-of select="document/recipe/title/text( )"/> 432 in FIG. 4C.

FIG. 5A shows an XML file 500 with </root> as a root element and includes two identical data, each is respective associated meta-tag information 501 or 502. According to one embodiment of the present invention, when a source XML file is received, the first associated meta-tag information (e.g., 501) of the XML file is identified, as a reference, to compare with the rest of the XML file. If there are any elements with the data or attributes that are identical to that of the reference, then unique identifiers or identifiable characters, such as numeric characters, are attached to the matched elements (or its data or attribute).

FIG. 5B shows that element 511 having data "C++ Programming" is used as a reference. The element 512, identical to the element 511, is now attached with an identifier "-A1" such that the modified element 512 becomes as "C++ Programming-A1". With the unique and identifiable characters attached in the element 512, the elements 511 and 512 can be uniquely differentiated and identifiable from each other.

If more identical elements with identical data or attributes are found in the rest of the XML file, then identifiers are respectively added to the matched data or attribute of the identified elements. FIG. 5B further shows that the elements 514 and 515 with attached characters (i.e., identifier) "-A2", and "-A3". If the searching could not find the next identical data or attribute from the rest of the XML file, then a second reference is identified, such as the referenced element 516, to compare with the rest of data or attributes of the XML elements. If the element 516 is one of the data or attributes that are identical to the previously referenced element, then the element will be skipped. If the rest of the data or attributes of the XML elements contains the identical data or attributes of the second reference 516, then a different kind of identifier is used or the used identifier is reset. FIG. 5B shows the element 517 has been attached with a unique (reset) identifier "-A1" that can differentiate and unique identify the elements 517 from 516.

According to another implementation, when the rest of the data or attributes of the XML file contains the same data or attributes, a dialog box (window) is provided to display the elements with the same data or attributes as the reference. FIG. 5C shows an example that can be displayed in a dialog box to show that there are two elements 531 and 535 with Identical content (e.g., data or attributes). Thus, a user is given an opportunity to either change the data or attribute of the element 531 and the element 532 of FIG. 5C or to make both of the elements differentiated, Individually unique, and identifiable from each other or from the corresponding Identical elements. Once the user changes either one or both of the elements, either element 501 or 502 wIll be used as reference and facilitate to look for the rest of the data or attributes of the elements in the XML file for comparison. FIG. 5C shows that all the identical elements have been differentiated and uniquely labeled. If no same data or attributes are found, then the next most data or attributes of the element of the XML file that has not been referenced or identified with previous reference will be used as reference until the same data or attributes of the rest of the XML file is found.

In one implementation, an identification tag is inserted into a portion of or every data and attributes of the XML file, such as "[x]Michael KIM" as in the elements of FIG. 5C. In converting the processed XML file to an HTML file, only the elements with "[x]" will be interpreted as associated meta-tag information and processed by the style-sheet converter for converting the associated meta-tag information with meta-tag information that will then be modified with <xsl: /> elements.

FIG. 6A illustrates a block diagram 600 of converting an XML file 602 to an XSLT file 604 in accordance with the present invention. Different from the prior art, when the XML 602 is received, a tag differentiating process 608 is added such that the associated meta-tag information in the XML file 602 is respectively differentiated and identification tags may be respectively attached to the XML data and attributes. In general, the target file 604 with associated meta-tag information can be created by an authoring tool 606 and converted into one or more XSL files through a converter 610.

FIG. 6B shows a corresponding flowchart or process 620 in accordance with the block diagram 600 of FIG. 6A. At 622, the process 620 awaits a source file that is typically a markup language file (e.g., an XML file). Upon receiving the file, an element in the source file is identified as a reference at 624. A search or matching processing takes place at 626 to identify any elements identical to the reference. At 628, an element is located to be identical to the reference, then an identifier is attached to the located element at 630. To differentiate the resultant identifiers, at 632, the identifier is incremented, for example, from A1 to A2, or XA to XB. The process 620 goes back to 628 to search any other identical elements till no more elements identical to the reference can be located. The process 620 then goes to 624 to identify another non-labeled element as a reference to continue the process 620 till all identical elements in the source file are differentiated or respectively labeled.

Optionally, when an identical element is located at 628, a dialog box is provided at 634 for the user, if desired, to alter the data or attributes of the identical element to be different from the reference. Further an identifier tag is inserted into the differentiated element at 630 to facilitate the subsequent conversation fro the source to another marked-up language file (e.g., an HTML file).

It should be noted that, depending on implementation, the process 620 may be implemented in parallel. That means that a number of elements may be identified at 624 as respective references. Thus the process 620 does not have to go through loops before all elements are differentiated and/or tagged respectively with identifier tags.

From the above description, meta-tag information for a data node includes source information and a document object path (DOP), for example, the meta-tag information {xc_xslt: document/recipe/title} includes "document/recipe/title" being the DOP and "xc_xslt:" being the source information. The DOP of meta-tag information shows the location of the data node and the relation of its parent node, e.g., a "title" node with other elements of the XML document in reference to FIG. 7A. The DOP uniquely identifies the "title" element while "xc_xslt:" shows information about its target file, namely, an xsl file.

Document object path information (DOPI), as used herein, means any language that specifies the location of a particular element or elements, attributes, and text data and the associated user defined operation or process for the subset of DOP. The DOPI is defined to differentiate itself from XPath (a language for addressing parts of an XML document) such that further information regarding the user specified requirement on manipulating meta-tag information can, be inserted and processed into the DOP that identifies a particular element or elements, attributes, and text data of document object.

An example of DOPI for an XML document without any user specified operation or process requirement on a subset of DOP is "document/recipe/title" of the meta-tag information {xc_xslt:document/recipe/title}. The subset document/recipe/title in the meta-tag information shows that a title element is located as a child of a recipe and the recipe is a child of a document, and the document is a root element of the XML document. An example of DOPI for an XML document with user specified operation or process requirement (i.e., desired operation) on a subset of DOPI is {xc_xslt:document/recipe/<xsl:for-each>ingredient/text( )<xsl:for-each/>} for the subset "document/recipe/title", wherein "document/recipe/<xsl:for-each>ingredient<xsl:for-each/>" shows that an operator or tag <xsl:for-each> is inserted between "recipe/" and "ingredient" and the end-tag of <xsl:for-each/> is inserted after "ingredient". Here, <xsl:for-each/> shows that user requires an operation of <xsl:for-each/> on the XSLT for the text data of the ingredient elements that has recipe as the parent element and document as the root element.

A user can insert more than one user desired operation on a subset of a DOPI. For example, a user could insert document/recipe/<xsl:template><xsl:for-each>ingredient/text( )<xsl:for-each/><xsl:temlplate/> as DOPI. In this example, the user requires both <xsl:template/> and <xsl:for-each/> operation on the text data of the "ingredient" element of "document/recipe/ingredient/text( ). document/recipe/<xsl:template/>ingredient[1]/text( )<xsl:template/>", which means that the user wants <xsl:template/> operation on the text data of the first "ingredient" child element of the recipe parent element with document as the root element.

According to one embodiment, upon receiving an XML file as a source document, the file is loaded into an XML parser such as Xerces-C++ from Apache Software Foundation website (www.apache.org). Within the Xercers-C++, the source document is parsed as elements, attributes, and data in a tree-I structure that can be individually accessible via Xeroers-C++ API. Within the XML parser, a user can select text data and attributes of the source XML document as associated mete-tag information and create mets-tag information for each associated meta-tag information with DOPI.

FIG. 7A shows the content of a XML document 700 displayed in a tree like structure 702 via a software implementation of one embodiment of invention. The XML document is parsed via a XML parser and elements 704, data 706, and attributes 708 are displayed as separate nodes. Given a visualization of the XML document parsed in the XML parser, a user can select or create associated meta-tag information. Once the data and attributes are selected as associated meta-tag information, the Document Object Path can be created, for example, the data 704, its Document Object Path is "Document/Recipe/Title/text( )" where "Title" is the parent element of the data 704, "Recipe" is a parent element of "Title", and Document is the root element that is the parent of "Recipe" element. For the attribute 708, the Document Object Path is "Document/Recipe/image/text( )", and for the data 710, 712, 714, and 716, the DOP are, "Document/Recipe/ingredient[1]/text( )", "Document/Recipe/ingredient[2]/text( )", "Document/Recipe/ingredient[3]/text( )", and "Document/Recipe/ingredient[4]/text( )" respectively. It is noted that for data 710, 712, 714, and 716, the names of their parent elements are the same. Therefore, "[ ]" with identifier numbers are inserted, according to the above description, after the name of the parent element so as to differentiate the nodes or meta-tag information 710, 712, 714, and 716.

Before or after the creation of the DOP, it allows users to input user required operations for the desired stylesheet action such as <xsl:for-each/> and <xsl:template/> on the element nodes. <xsl:for-each/> is an XSLT instruction that selects a set of nodes using an Xpath expression, and performs the same processing for each node in the set, and <xsl:template/> is an XSLT instruction that defines a template for producing an output by matching nodes against a pattern or by name. A user may put special characters in front of the name of the elements, highlight the element node, or select predefined functionalities available for the given implementation of the invention via dialogue. The user may select any elements nodes, data, attributes and provide certain information on how to process the elements.

If there is a "+" sign in front of the ingredient element symbols as referenced by 720 in FIG. 7B, the present invention facilitates to create a DOPI, where the DOP of 710, 712, 714, and 716 of FIG. 7A will be changed to "Document/Recipe/<xsl:for-each>ingredient/text( )</xsl:for-each>", "Document/Recipe/<xsl:for-each>ingredient/text( )</xsl:for-each>", "Document/Recipe/<xsl:for-each>ingredient/text( )</xsl:for-each>", and "Document/Recipe/<xsl:for-each>ingredient/text( )</xsl:for-each>" respectively. The <xsl:for-each> and </xsl:for-each> shows that the user wants every ingredient node that is located between <xsl:for-each> and </xsl:for-each> to be selected and process the same way independent of the number of ingredient nodes under "Document/Recipe" parents.

If there is a "D" sign in front of the ingredient element symbols, facilitates to create a DOPI, where DOP of 710, 712, 714, and 716 of FIG. 7A will be changed to "Document/Recipe/<xsl:template>ingredient/text( )</xsl:template>", "Document/Recipe/<xsl:template >ingredient/text( )</xsl:template>", "Document/Recipe/<xsl:template>ingredient/text( )</xsl:template>", and "Document/Recipe/<xsl:template>ingredient/text( )</xsl:template>" respectively.

Further, user may specify more than one instruction on the same element or elements such that the DOPI can be "Document/Recipe/<xsl:template><xsl:for-each>ingredient/text( )</xsl:for-each></xsl:template> and "Document/<xsl:template> Recipe/<xsl:template><xsl:for-each>ingredient/text( )</xsl:for-each></xsl:template>. Once DOPIs are constructed, a user may insert the associated meta-tag information into an