公开(公告)号：US06373012B1

公开(公告)日：2002-04-16

申请号：US09663113

申请日：2000-09-15

申请人： Christopher L. Crutchfield ,  William Wheeler

发明人： Christopher L. Crutchfield ,  William Wheeler

IPC分类号： B07C500

CPC分类号： B07C3/18 ,  Y10S209/90

摘要： A method and apparatus are provided for custom sorting, outsorting and remapping mail items by utilizing a processor to compare postal codes read from incoming mail items, M characters at a time, with entries in a stored listing of entries, taking a first action if no match is found for an incoming entry and taking a second action if a match is found for the entry. Appropriate actions may include sending an entry unaltered to a sort processor or sending a directed value to the sort processor which may result in a remapping or outsorting of the mail item. A count may also be stored with each entry in the table, which count can be incremented or decremented when there is a match on such entry, and this count may be used to selectively control the sorting operation. Finally, the entries stored in the list may be converted to ordered entries and then stored as a digital tree, incoming entries also being converted to ordered entries on a character-by-character basis as received, and the entries in the tree being matched on, M characters at a time, as received. At least selected nodes of the tree contain output information so that the search may be terminated after any input character while still obtaining useful output information.

摘要翻译： 提供了一种方法和装置，用于通过利用处理器来对邮件进行自定义排序，外发和重新映射，以将来自传入邮件项目的邮政编码（一次M个字符）与存储的条目列表中的条目进行比较，如果没有 找到匹配的输入条目，并采取第二个动作，如果匹配的条目。 适当的动作可以包括将未改变的条目发送到分类处理器或向分类处理器发送定向值，这可能导致邮件项目的重新映射或外发。 计数也可以与表中的每个条目一起存储，当在该条目上存在匹配时，该计数可以递增或递减，并且该计数可用于选择性地控制排序操作。 最后，存储在列表中的条目可以转换为有序条目，然后存储为数字树，输入条目也按接收到的逐个字符转换为有序条目，并且树中的条目匹配 一次接收到M个字符。 至少所选择的树的节点包含输出信息，使得搜索可以在任何输入字符之后终止，同时仍然获得有用的输出信息。