Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Matthew Ryan

Michael Lasky

Andrew A Hodgkinson

Russell T Young

Systems and methods are described herein for creating, maintaining and applying a dataset that can be used to synchronize multiple instances of a data store. The dataset includes a sequentially-ordered sequence of change sets associated with the data store, wherein each change set includes zero or more entries that specify how the state of certain entities in the data store have changed since state changes represented by a previous change set in the sequence were applied to the data store. When a new change set is added to the dataset, any entries in any previously-added change sets dealing with the entities identified in the new change set are removed. Consequently, the dataset provides a concise and complete representation of all the state changes that have occurred to the data store since a known origin state.

Application of a differential dataset to a data store using sequential change sets

A string matching system is described herein that provides for very fast and efficient pattern matching against large sets of certain types of pattern strings. If a set of pattern strings is comprised of strings that can be logically divided into segments, these pattern strings can be stored efficiently in a tree-like data structure, segment by segment, storing pattern-match syntax segments separately from literal string segments. After segmentation, individual match candidate strings are compared, segment by segment, against elements in the tree. The system uses a data structure that is conceptually a combination of a tree and a hash table. Using a hash table to implement the branching elements at each level in the tree contributes to quick matching speed at each level. By consistently separating strings into segments, the system can also share storage locations for like elements in the data structure.

Growing community of inventors

Spanish Fork, UT, United States of America

Matthew Ryan