Lucent Technologies Inc.

At+t Corp.

Eric D Scott

Charles A Priddy

Richard Thomas Emery

A method for maintaining the performance of the system while identifying and reclaiming unreferenced tuples. A set of status bits is associated with each tuple, which are used to indicate the current state of the tuple, and whether it is in a transient state while the garbage collector, according to this invention, is examining it, thus permitting the garbage collector to run without locking out other processing. Further, the garbage collector uses the status bits to audit linked lists used by a database manager against linkage failure. Finally, the garbage collector compresses data and removes redundant data found while traversing the tuple structure of the database.

Database memory compaction and reclamation method

A shared tuple method for storing data in a database which supports modification of view relations without causing anomalous changes to logically unrelated tuples in the same or other relations. A generated key is generated by the database which uniquely identifies data in a child tuple. As a result, virtual parent relations are referenced by an original primary key, but has its underlying attribute values stored in one or more secondary relations whose access is gained through stored generated keys. The application interface is unaffected, because the system transparently pieces together the virtual relation from the primary and one or more secondary relations.

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Naperville, IL, United States of America

Eric D Scott