Patent ID: 7334003
Filing Date: 2008-02-19
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A method of extracting related information from electronic files, wherein each file includes a plurality of records and wherein each record includes at least one field for containing data, the method comprising: a) receiving a user designation of at least first and second electronic files, wherein the first and second electronic files comprise two-dimensional files, each having a plurality of fields and a plurality of records, and wherein the first and second electronic files have in common at least one common field in which similar data is stored for each record in each of the first and second electronic files; b) receiving a user input that designates one of the at least one common fields to be a key segment; c) sorting the records of the first and second electronic files based on the key segment; d) comparing key segment data of the first and second electronic files; e) upon each occurrence of a match of key segment data of a record in the first electronic file to key segment data of a record in the second electronic file, creating a record in a temporary electronic file, wherein the record in the temporary file includes a copy of the matching key second data from the first and second electronic files; f) also upon each occurrence of a match of key segment data of a record in the first electronic file to key segment data of a record in the second electronic file, copying additional data from the first electronic file and the second electronic file into the record in the temporary file; g) selecting data from the temporary file; and h) outputting the selected data.