Patent ID: 6886005

Claim:
A method for processing transformational queries on data, comprising: accessing an index of numerical data items originating from source documents, wherein the numerical data items are tagged and the tags associated with the indexed numerical data items reflect a context of the numerical data items in the source documents; selecting tagged numerical data items in the index to form a resultant data set responsive to a query, wherein the tagged numerical data items in the index are updated by storing a search criterion, a frequency parameter, and an expiration parameter, and using the frequency parameter to poll a document with the search criterion for a time determined by the expiration parameter to retrieve tagged numerical data items for updating the index; formatting the resultant data set from the selected tagged numerical data items, transforming when necessary select tagged numerical data items in the resultant data set for consistent presentation of all numerical data items in the resultant data set, based on the tags associated with the located tagged numerical data items; and making the formatted resultant data set available to a user.