Xref: utzoo comp.sources.wanted:12626 comp.text:7045
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!emv
From: emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.wanted,comp.text
Subject: Re: Litterature search/index/information retrieval program wanted
Message-ID: <EMV.90Jul26011306@urania.math.lsa.umich.edu>
Date: 26 Jul 90 08:13:06 GMT
References: <1990Jul21.212945.15889@bbt.se>
Sender: usenet@math.lsa.umich.edu
Organization: University of Michigan Math Dept., Ann Arbor MI.
Lines: 58
In-Reply-To: pgd@bbt.se's message of 21 Jul 90 21:29:45 GMT

In article <1990Jul21.212945.15889@bbt.se> pgd@bbt.se (P.Garbha) writes:

   I am looking for some software for unix to make some kind of on-line
   litterature reference search system. I have a >30MB database, with the
   full contents of a number of books.  For this i want a system that
   sets up an index to every word in the books, and that let me search in
   this to locate references from the books.
   For example, if i put a search for "unix" and "pc", the program should
   come up with a list of all logical units (paragraphs, chapters, or
   something else) with these two words in (the same sentence, or near
   each other). From this list i can narrow in further, or look at the
   references, to finally get a printout.

the "Pat" software from Open Text Systems should be able to do what
you want.  First, you have to mark up the documents to delimit boundaries
like paragraphs, pages, or chapters; the information may be available
in the texts as you have them (in which case no explicit markup would
be needed) or you may need to construct it.  Pat likes to use a 
simplified form of SGML to tag things.  You then create an index to the
whole text (every word is easy), make a pass over it to find the
boundaries, and you're set.

it supports queries like the ones you describe.  the command line
interface is kind of clunky, there are some nice glossy X11 interfaces
like the one used to present the OED.  best of all, once you do the
index (which takes a longish time and a lot of disk) the lookups are
amazingly fast, i.e. short enough so that you can run them interactively
on a sparcstation 1 and not have time to play hack in another window.

You might contact Tim Bray <tbray@watsol.waterloo.edu> for nitty
gritty like pricing.  

--Ed

Edward Vielmetti, U of Michigan math dept <emv@math.lsa.umich.edu>
comp.archives moderator


>> telebit
  3: 76 matches

>> modem
  4: 300 matches

>> 3 near 4
  5: 39 matches

>> docs article including 5
  6: 5 matches

>> pr.docs.header
  1824104, ..From comp.archives Wed Feb 14 20:20:55 EST 1990
Path: jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!math.lsa
.umich.edu!emv
From: jeh@simpact.com
Newsgroups: comp.archives
Subject: [comp.os.vms] Re: is UUCP available for VMS?  (yes!  so is NEWS!)
....