Search strategy that returns hits and context?

[Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org>]

Hi Folks,

I have this XML document:

<Test>
    <Context1>
        <ItemA>abc - yes!</ItemA>
        <ItemB>def</ItemB>
    </Context1>
    <Context2>
        <ItemC>ghi</ItemC>
        <Context3>
            <ItemD>abc ... oky-dokey</ItemD>
            <ItemE>jkl</ItemE>
        </Context3>
    </Context2>
    <Context4>
        <ItemF>mno</ItemF>
    </Context4>
</Test>

I want to know if the document contains the string "abc". I want software to search the document for all occurrences of "abc" and I want the results of the search to show both the value that "abc" is part of and the value's context. In the above XML document there are two occurrences of "abc", one in the <ItemA> element and the other in the <ItemD> element. 

I can think of two ways to display the search results. I describe the two ways below. Are there other ways?

One way is to return, for each occurrence, the element value and the path to the element, e.g.,

abc - yes!
/Test/Context1/ItemA

abc ... oky-dokey
/Test/Context2/Context3/ItemD

Another way is to show the entire document, omitting the portions that do not contain the desired search value, e.g.,

<Test>
    <Context1>
        <ItemA>abc - yes!</ItemA>
    </Context1>
    <Context2>
        <Context3>
            <ItemD>abc ... oky-dokey</ItemD>
        </Context3>
    </Context2>
</Test>