System and method for scoping searches using index keys

摘要

A set of index keys is included in an index search system that are associated with the scope of the search rather than the content of the documents that are the target of the search. These scope related index keys, or scope keys allows the scope of the search to be selected, reducing the number of documents that a search is required to sift through to obtain results. Furthermore, compound scopes are recognized and stored such that an index of complex search scopes is provided to eliminate rehashing of the searches based on these complex search scopes.

主权项

1. A method for establishing a search scope for a query of documents, comprising:
identifying properties related to the documents; generating scope-related index keys according to the identified properties; generating content-related index keys according to content of the documents, wherein the content-related index keys identify keywords in the documents; generating an index with a computing device, the index including:
a first sub-index storing data associating the content-related index keys with subsets of the documents that contain the content identified by the respective content-related index keys;a second sub-index storing scope-related index keys, each scope-related index key being associated with a subset of the documents that have a property identified by the scope-related index key; anda third sub-index storing compound scope-related index keys, each compound scope-related index key being generated from two or more of the scope-related index keys in the second sub-index, each compound scope-related index key being associated with a subset of the documents that have two or more properties identified by the two or more scope-related index keys; and providing results to a search query containing a keyword and a scope limitation by:
determining whether the scope limitation is a basic scope limitation or a compound scope limitation and using the respective second sub-index or the third sub-index to identify the subset of the documents that match the scope limitation;using the first sub-index to identify the documents within the subset of the documents that contain the keyword; andcomparing the subset of the documents that contain the keyword with the subset of the documents that match the scope limitation to determine a common set of documents, and to identify the set of documents that satisfy the search query.