Patent ID: 7664743

Claim:
A data processing unit comprising: a data storage section; a data acquisition section that acquires the dates of multiple date items including date attributes; a date representing section that represents the dates of data such that a lapse of months from January to December is expressed circumferentially and a lapse of two or more years is expressed radially; a search-range representing section superposed on the date representing section and representing a sectored search range concentric with the date representing section so that the user can designate a search range, wherein a central angle of the sectored search range represents a range of date of search data and a radial thickness of the sectored search range represents a range of year of the search data; and a search section that searches for data having a date in the range designated in the search-range representing section from a date stored in the data storage section; and a control section that controls at least one of the range of year of the search data and the range of date of search data, wherein when the control section is controlled, at least one of the sectored search-range representation of the search-range representing section and the date representation of the date representing section are also controlled correspondingly; the sectored search range represented by the search-range representing section includes: a first arc a second arc smaller than the first arc; and two parallel straight lines connecting the first arc and the second arc, wherein a sector is concentric with the date representing section, the central angle of the sector corresponding to the range of date of the search data; and when the range of the year of search data is controlled by the control section, at least one of the first arc and the second arc of the search-range representing section is also controlled so that a search range represented over the date representing section includes a year of the search data but does not include other years.