Abstract: A new type of text search apparatus, capable of finding all occurrence positions of a search string that is an arbitrary character string, within a text which is written as a continous sequence of characters, utilizes for text position reference purposes in an index file, words which each occur (at least once within the text) as the maximum length word, referred to as an extension word, among a set of arbitrarily predefined dictionary words extending from a specific character position. Each such occurrence of a word as an extension word defines one of a set of text position elements, with that set covering all of the character positions of the text. The index file also includes a table which relates each of the extension words to the respective positions at which each of the partial character strings of the word occur within the word.

Abstract: A concept dictionary management device includes a fundamental concept dictionary data holding portion for holding fundamental concept network connection information which represents fundamental concept network connections among words stored in a concept dictionary, a first supplemental concept dictionary data holding portion for holding first supplemental concept network connection information to be used for adding words to and deleting words from the concept network connections represented by the fundamental concept network connection information, a second supplemental concept dictionary data holding portion for holding second supplemental concept network connection information to be used only for personal use, to add one or more words to and deleting one or more words from the concept network connections obtained as a result of an addition of a deletion of the words connection by using the first supplemental concept network connection information, a concept dictionary retrieval portion for retrieving a conc

Abstract: A finite state automaton (FSA) text search apparatus converts each of successively received binary code numbers, representing successive characters of a text to be searched, into two portions. Two portions are extracted from a state number which is currently being read out from a first table memory, with one portion being combined with one of the input character portions and the combination used to select one of a set of 1st displacement numbers from a second table memory, while a second portion of the current state number and the other portion of the input character number similarly select one of a set of 2nd displacement numbers from a third table memory, and the entire current state number selects one of a set of base numbers from a fourth table memory. The selected 1st and 2nd displacement numbers are combined with the selected base number, and the result used to select the next state number from the first table memory.