Method and system for generating, associating and employing user-defined fields in a relational database within an information technology system
First Claim
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1. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon a data structure, the data structure having a first user-defined field, or first “
- UDF”
, the first UDF associated with a record stored in a table, the first UDF comprising;
an identifier of the record;
an identifier of the first UDF; and
a first datafield, whereby the first datafield is associated with the record and additional information may be stored in the first datafield and associated with the record and without modification of the table.
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Abstract
A system and method for creating and employing user-defined fields with an information technology system is provided. An exemplary computational system has a relational database and relational database management software program. The method of the present invention enables the creation of a user-defined field that may be associated with one or more records of one or more tables of a database of the computational system. Data may be appended to records without changing the schema of the table.
29 Citations
10 Claims
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1. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon a data structure, the data structure having a first user-defined field, or first “
- UDF”
, the first UDF associated with a record stored in a table, the first UDF comprising;
an identifier of the record;
an identifier of the first UDF; and
a first datafield, whereby the first datafield is associated with the record and additional information may be stored in the first datafield and associated with the record and without modification of the table. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
- UDF”
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9. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon a data structure, the data structure having a record, a List and a list user-defined field, or “
- List UDF”
, the List UDF relatable to the record, and the List UDF comprising;
an identifier of the List UDF;
an identifier of the List; and
a data address of the List, whereby an information stored at the data address of the List is associated with the List UDF and the information may be stored or modified at the data address of the List, and the information may be associated with the record and without modification of the table.
- List UDF”
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10. A computer system comprising:
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a software database having data organized into a table of records;
a user-defined field for associating a datum with a record of the table, the user-defined field having a UDF identifier and a record identifier;
a metadata associated with the user-defined field and the metadata specifying the data type of the datum; and
a database manager software program for merging the user-defined field with the record to associate the datum of the user-defined field with the record of the table.
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Specification