Patent attributes
A structure pattern candidate generating system is disclosed for automatically generating many kinds of complicated structure pattern candidates and facilitating selection of a structure pattern suitable for the purpose. When the system is provided with a structure pattern pointing to an element or an element set in a document logical structure of a structured document, that has been specified by a user, a method for determining an item to be edited determines an item to be edited among the items composing the structure pattern. A method for generating structure pattern candidates replaces the item to be edited with items in different expressions based on the document logical structure information about the structured document to generate structure pattern candidates. A method for generating a structure pattern candidate list arranges the generated structure pattern candidates based on a condition and index for display for giving selection criteria to the user to generate a structure pattern candidate list. If the system is provided with an item desired to be edited, that has been specified by the user for the structure pattern, the method for determining an item to be edited determines the item desired to be edited as the item to be edited.