The SMARTedit system automates repetitive text-editing tasks by learning programs to perform them using techniques drawn from machine learning. SMARTedit represents a text-editing program as a series of functions that alter the state of the text editor (i.e., the contents of the file, or the cursor position). Like macro recording systems, SMARTedit learns the program by observing a user performing her task. However, unlike macro recorders, SMARTedit examines the context in which the user's actions are performed and learns programs that work correctly in new contexts. Using a machine learning concept called version space algebra, SMARTedit is able to learn useful text-editing procedures after only a small number of demonstrations.
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