Method and a device for frequency counting

摘要

A memory efficient method and electronic device for counting frequencies of various events. The structure for storing frequency data comprises primary (204) and secondary (206) storages which contain frequency data (208, 210, 214) in different levels of detail. The primary storage (204) is a detailed storage comprising both event type and count information units in a fully restorable form. The secondary storage (206) is targeted for more infrequent events with lower level of detail and constructed as an array of count values addressed by a hash function using event type as an input. Another option is to derive a shortened ID from the event type by utilizing a hash function and exploit the ID as an addressing key for the corresponding count. Events are moved between primary (204) and secondary (206) storages depending on the detected event type frequencies. The invention is utilized in a recommendation engine for grading and sorting bookmarks stored in browsers for accessing the Internet.

主权项

1. A method for counting frequency of events to be performed by an electronic device, said method comprising:
defining an event type the frequency of which is to be counted, detecting an event of the event type to be counted when occurred, storing frequency information for the event type in one of a primary storage of one or more memory units used by the electronic device or a secondary storage of one or more memory units used by the electronic device, the frequency information for an event type stored in the primary storage comprising more information about the event type than the frequency information for the event type stored in the secondary storage, the storing frequency information comprising: checking if the event type is already included in the primary storage with more detail concerning the event type, and if included, increasing a count for the event type in the primary storage with more detail concerning the event type, otherwise, if the event type is not included in the primary storage, updating a count for the event type in the secondary storage with less detail concerning the event type, wherein the frequency information for the events is stored as event type identifier/frequency count pairs and wherein event type identifier is an output of a hash function.