Efficiently storing indented threads in a threaded discussion application

• US 7,254,585 B2
• Filed: 05/07/2004
• Issued: 08/07/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/28/2002
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: BEA Systems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Frieden, Kurt, Srikhanta, Prasanna
• Primary Examiner(s): PANNALA, SATHYANARAYA R
• Application Number:
  US10/840,979
• Publication Number:
  US 20040210569A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,187 Days
• Field of Search: 707/3, 707/103.R, 707/1
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/30 of unstructured textual data document management systems G06F16/93
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/81 Indexing, e.g. XML tags; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99937 Sorting
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

A method, apparatus, and computer-readable media for retrieving records in a hierarchical set of the records having a plurality of hierarchical levels and a plurality of hierarchical depths, each of the records having a tag that is unique within the hierarchical set of the records, comprises identifying one of the records in the hierarchical set of the records; modifying the tag, thereby producing a key; indexing the hierarchical set of the records only once, thereby selecting one or more of the records within the hierarchical set of the records, wherein indexing the hierarchical set of the records only once comprises applying the key to the hierarchical set of the records; and retrieving the selected records.

Claims

1. One or more digital storage devices having computer-readable code embodied therein, including a database with a hierarchical data set having a plurality of hierarchical levels and a plurality of hierarchical depths, and including a unique tag for a datum, for updating, querying or retrieving a record from the database, or managing or displaying a discussion among multiple participants, or combinations thereof, the unique tag comprising:

a number having a plurality of digits, each digit representing one of the hierarchical depths of the hierarchical data set; and

wherein

the position of the least-significant non-zero digit represents the hierarchical depth of the datum;

the value of the least-significant non-zero digit represents the hierarchical level of the datum; and

the digits that are more significant than the least-significant non-zero digit represent parents of the datum, and

wherein the tag comprises a key produced by a method comprising;

(a) receiving a command from a user requesting replying to a message;

(b) selecting a digit corresponding to the hierarchical depth of the message; and

(c) incrementing the value of the selected digit, wherein the method further comprises setting the value of each digit corresponding to a hierarchical depth below the hierarchical depth of the selected digit to a wildcard value, thereby producing the key.

2. One or more digital storage devices having computer-readable code embodied therein including a database having data for access by an application program being executed on a data processing system, the computer readable code comprising:

a data structure stored in the memory, the data structure comprising a hierarchical data set having a plurality of hierarchical levels and a plurality of hierarchical depths, the hierarchical data set comprising a unique tag for a datum for updating, querying or retrieving a record from the database, or managing or displaying a discussion among multiple participants, or combinations thereof, the unique tag comprising;

a number having a plurality of digits, each digit representing one of the hierarchical depths of the hierarchical data set; and

wherein

the position of the least-significant non-zero digit represents the hierarchical depth of the datum;

the value of the least-significant non-zero digit represents the hierarchical level of the datum; and

the digits that are more significant than the least-significant non-zero digit represent parents of the datum, and

wherein the tag comprises a key produced by a method comprising;

(a) receiving a command from a user requesting replying to a message;

(b) selecting a digit corresponding to the hierarchical depth of the message; and

(c) incrementing the value of the selected digit, wherein the method further comprises setting the value of each digit corresponding to a hierarchical depth below the hierarchical depth of the selected digit to a wildcard value, thereby producing the key.

3. One or more digital storage devices having computer-readable code embodied therein, including a database with a hierarchical data set having a plurality of hierarchical levels and a plurality of hierarchical depths, and including a unique tag for a datum, for updating, guerying or retrieving a record from the a database, or managing or displaying a discussion among multiple participants, or combinations thereof, the unique tag comprising:

a number having a plurality of digits, each digit representing one of the hierarchical depths of the hierarchical data set; and

wherein

the position of the least-significant non-zero digit represents the hierarchical depth of the datum;

the value of the least-significant non-zero digit represents the hierarchical level of the datum; and

the digits that are more significant than the least-significant non-zero digit represent parents of the datum, and

wherein the tag comprises a key produced by a method comprising;

(a) receiving a command from a user requesting replying to a message;

(b) selecting a digit corresponding to the hierarchical depth of the message; and

(c) incrementing the value of the selected digit, wherein the method further comprises indexing a database only once by adding a record to the database thereby producing the key as its tag.

4. One or more digital storage devices having computer-readable code embodied therein, including a database with a hierarchical data set having a plurality of hierarchical levels and a plurality of hierarchical depths, and including a unique tag for a datum, for updating, querying or retrieving a record from the a database, or managing or displaying a discussion among multiple participants, or combinations thereof, the unique tag comprising:

a number having a plurality of digits, each digit representing one of the hierarchical depths of the hierarchical data set; and

wherein

the position of the least-significant non-zero digit represents the hierarchical depth of the datum;

the value of the least-significant non-zero digit represents the hierarchical level of the datum; and

the digits that are more significant than the least-significant non-zero digit represent parents of the datum, and

wherein the tag comprises a key produced by a method comprising;

(a) receiving a command from a user requesting replying to a message;

(b) selecting a digit corresponding to the hierarchical depth of the message; and

(c) incrementing the value of the selected digit, wherein the selecting comprises selecting the digit corresponding to the hierarchical depth immediately below the hierarchical depth of the message, and thereby producing the key.

5. One or more digital storage devices having computer-readable code embodied therein, including a database with a hierarchical data set having a plurality of hierarchical levels and a plurality of hierarchical depths, and including a unique tag for a datum, for updating, querying or retrieving a record from the a database, or managing or displaying a discussion among multiple participants, or combinations thereof, the unique tag comprising:

a number having a plurality of digits, each digit representing one of the hierarchical depths of the hierarchical data set; and

wherein

the position of the least-significant non-zero digit represents the hierarchical depth of the datum;

the value of the least-significant non-zero digit represents the hierarchical level of the datum; and

the digits that are more significant than the least-significant non-zero digit represent parents of the datum, and

wherein the tag comprises a key produced by a method comprising;

(a) receiving a command from a user requesting replying to a message;

(b) selecting a digit corresponding to the hierarchical depth of the message; and

(c) incrementing the value of the selected digit, wherein the method further comprises setting the value of the selected digit to a null value, thereby producing the key.

6. One or more digital storage devices having computer-readable code embodied therein including a database having data for access by an application program being executed on a data processing system, the computer readable code comprising:

a data structure stored in the memory, the data structure comprising a hierarchical data set having a plurality of hierarchical levels and a plurality of hierarchical depths, the hierarchical data set comprising a unique tag for a datum for updating, querying or retrieving a record from a the database, or managing or displaying a discussion among multiple participants, or combinations thereof, the unique tag comprising;

a number having a plurality of digits, each digit representing one of the hierarchical depths of the hierarchical data set; and

wherein

the position of the least-significant non-zero digit represents the hierarchical depth of the datum;

the value of the least-significant non-zero digit represents the hierarchical level of the datum; and

the digits that are more significant than the least-significant non-zero digit represent parents of the datum, and

wherein the tag comprises a key produced by a method comprising;

(a) receiving a command from a user requesting replying to a message;

(b) selecting a digit corresponding to the hierarchical depth of the message; and

(c) incrementing the value of the selected digit, wherein the method further comprises indexing a database only once by adding a record to the database thereby producing the key as its tag.

7. One or more digital storage devices having computer-readable code embodied therein including a database having data for access by an application program being executed on a data processing system, the computer readable code comprising:

a data structure stored in the memory, the data structure comprising a hierarchical data set having a plurality of hierarchical levels and a plurality of hierarchical depths, the hierarchical data set comprising a unique tag for a datum for updating, querying or retrieving a record from a the database, or managing or displaying a discussion among multiple participants, or combinations thereof, the unique tag comprising;

a number having a plurality of digits, each digit representing one of the hierarchical depths of the hierarchical data set; and

wherein

the position of the least-significant non-zero digit represents the hierarchical depth of the datum;

the value of the least-significant non-zero digit represents the hierarchical level of the datum; and

the digits that are more significant than the least-significant non-zero digit represent parents of the datum, and

wherein the tag comprises a key produced by a method comprising;

(a) receiving a command from a user requesting replying to a message;

(b) selecting a digit corresponding to the hierarchical depth of the message; and

(c) incrementing the value of the selected digit, wherein the selecting comprises selecting the digit corresponding to the hierarchical depth immediately below the hierarchical depth of the message, and thereby producing the key.

8. One or more digital storage devices having computer-readable code embodied therein including a database having data for access by an application program being executed on a data processing system, the computer readable code comprising:

a data structure stored in the memory, the data structure comprising a hierarchical data set having a plurality of hierarchical levels and a plurality of hierarchical depths, the hierarchical data set comprising a unique tag for a datum for updating, querying or retrieving a record from a the database, or managing or displaying a discussion among multiple participants, or combinations thereof, the unique tag comprising;

a number having a plurality of digits, each digit representing one of the hierarchical depths of the hierarchical data set; and

wherein

the position of the least-significant non-zero digit represents the hierarchical depth of the datum;

the value of the least-significant non-zero digit represents the hierarchical level of the datum; and

the digits that are more significant than the least-significant non-zero digit represent parents of the datum, and

wherein the tag comprises a key produced by a method comprising;

(a) receiving a command from a user requesting replying to a message;

(b) selecting a digit corresponding to the hierarchical depth of the message; and

(c) incrementing the value of the selected digit, wherein the method further comprises setting the value of the selected digit to a null value, thereby producing the key.