Patent ID: 8732116

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for extracting information from a list into a relational database table, comprising: receiving the list, the list having a plurality of items; determining, by a processor of a computing system, for each one of the plurality of items of the list, a quantity of fields, which include a sequence of one or more consecutive terms of the item; determining, by a processor of the computing system, based on the determined quantity of fields for each one of the plurality of items of the list, a quantity of columns for the relational database table; identifying, by a processor of the computing system, an item from among the plurality of items of the list having a different quantity of determined fields than the quantity of columns; and when the quantity of determined fields of the identified item is greater than the quantity of columns: merging the determined fields of the identified item to generate new fields of the identified item so that a quantity of the new fields does not exceed the quantity of columns, when the quantity of the new fields is less than the quantity of columns: aligning each of the new fields with a corresponding column in the relational database table, wherein the alignment is based on a cost function that measures a cost to align each of the new fields in the identified item with each of the columns in the relational database table, and inserting one or more null fields into the new fields so that the identified item has as many new fields as the quantity of relational database table columns and the null fields are aligned with columns in the relational database table that did not align to any new fields in the item, and writing a row into the relational database table using the new fields such that information in each of the new fields of the identified item is written to a corresponding column of the row of the relational database table.