Apparatus and method for searching data

摘要

The present invention provides a data search apparatus having a processing device, a storage device, an input device responsive to user input, and a display device, the apparatus being characterised by: data extracting means within the processing device for dividing a sequence of data to be searched and for establishing a plurality of representative samples of data from said sequence of data; display means for sending said plurality of representative samples of data to the display device for display; the input device being responsive to user input to select two representative samples from among those displayed; and the processing device having a data search region determining and changing means responsive to the input device to determine, as a new sequence of data to be searched, a sequence of data whose start and end positions are specified by said two selected representative samples. This technique simplifies the data search area setting operation. Representative samples among a group of data to be searched are displayed, and two representative samples in the display are selected to specify a new area of data to be searched.