In most applications, knowing the characteristics of the data mining method
s is usually the key factor to determine the kind of data mining methods sh
ould be applied. In this work, we first survey and analyze six kinds of dat
a mining algorithms and four kinds of data forms, and then find out the rel
ations between the mining algorithms and the data types. According to the r
elations, the suitable generalized data types will be created and is then u
sed to transform the generalized data types of data sources to the suitable
one for the selected mining algorithm. With the proposed preprocessing wor
k for data mining algorithms, users can select appropriate mining algorithm
just for the goal of application without considering the data types. Final
ly. two applications for e-mail management and e-mail log analysis are prop
osed to show the practicality of our method.