The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 12, 1998
Filed:
Oct. 08, 1996
Allen Reiter, Haifa, IL;
Ian Charles Jose, Bellevue, WA (US);
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
A computer method and storage structure for storing and accessing multidimensional data is provided. A tree manager provided by the present invention stores data such as pointers, variable length data records, other B-trees, and directories, in a Multidimensional B-tree (MDB-tree). An MDB-tree has an imbedded 'parent-child' structure which allows subtrees to be stored within nodes. The subtrees contain subnodes, which, in turn, may contain subtrees. The nodes are indexed by a primary key value while the subnodes in a subtree are indexed by secondary key values. Nodes of a MDB-tree contain a key value table, a subnode table, and a data area. When the tree manager attempts to store a unit of data on a page and the unit of data is too large for the page, the tree manager attempts to split a node currently stored on the page (or the unit of data being inserted) into a subnode and a subtree. The subtree is then stored on a new page. If the unit of data cannot be split into a subnode and a subtree, then one or more of the node currently stored on the page are moved to a new page.