Abstract: A data exchange process is implemented by a computer system coupled for communication with a remote index server via a network. The process provides for transfer of a data block from a source host having an internal source data format, to a destination host having an internal destination data format different from the source data format. The process includes the steps of: determining characteristics of the source data format by comparing the source data format to sets of data format characteristics stored in a memory storage space of the computer system to determine if a predetermined relationship exists between the characteristics of the source data format and a particular one of the sets, and if so, a source driver associated with the particular set is accessed from memory of the computer system, the source driver being capable of extracting a data block from the source host and converting the format of the data block to an intermediate data format.

Abstract: A data exchange process for transferring data representing a geographical address from a source host using a source data format to a destination host using a destination data format including the steps of: using a first driver to extract a data block from the source host and to convert the format of the data block from the source data format to an intermediate data format; and temporarily storing the data block in an intermediate memory storage location; determining if the data block includes plain text data which is not parsed and identified by corresponding tags. If the data block includes plain text data which is not parsed and identified by corresponding tags, the process provides for automatically parsing the data block into a plurality of data portions having corresponding tags associated therewith, each of the tags indicating a type of information represented by the corresponding data portion.