Need-2-Know Software - Data processing and document manipulation software.

Examples

Documentation

Almost all data processing system today are based on the relation data model. This web site prompts a simpler alternative that promises to make building of data processing systems much easier.

Almost every transaction in business generates a paper document. The data from these paper documents is extracted by a human and entered into a computer. The computer breaks the data up further and stores these little pirces of data using the Relation Data Model. When the document is printed, the computer reassembles the pieces of data and formats the document before the document is printed.

A simpler approach is to stored the document as is. The computer is then responsible for automatically extracting the data from the document. The document then becomes a wrapper for the data. A datawrap is a document that contains data the can be read by humans and automatically extracted by a computer

The follow list of books is an example of a datawrap.

Title: Webster New Collegiate Dictionary Call-Number: PE1628.W4M4 Subject: English language - Dictionaries.
Title: Betty Croker's cooking for two Author: Crocker, Betty. Call-Number: TX652.C8318 2002
Author: Reingold, Edward M. and Wilfred J. Hansen
Subject: Data structures Call-Number: QA76.9D35R44 1983 Title: Data Structures

A report definition tells the computer how to manipulate the datawrap. The following report definition tells the computer to extract some fields and then sort the result.

filter title:,author:,subject:,call-number:
sort A

Running this report definition on the example datawrap produces the follow table as output

title author subject call-number
Betty Croker's cooking for two Crocker, Betty. TX652.C8318 2002
Data Structures Reingold, Edward M. and Wilfred J. Hansen Data structures QA76.9D35R44 1983
Webster New Colegiate Dictionary English language - Dictionaries. PE1628.W4M4

The idea of a datawrap may be simple, but there are many details to be filled in to produce a useful data processing system. This website provides all the tools needed to build useful applications around datawraps.