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:
Sep. 02, 2008
Filed:
Aug. 24, 2004
Patrick Eugene O'neil, Cambridge, MS (US);
Elizabeth Jean O'neil, Cambridge, MS (US);
Shankar Pal, Redmond, WA (US);
Gideon Schaller, Bellevue, WA (US);
Istvan Cseri, Redmond, WA (US);
Jose A. Blakeley, Bothell, WA (US);
Nigel Clifton Westbury, Mercer Island, WA (US);
Sameet Agarwal, Redmond, WA (US);
F. Soner Terek, Bellevue, WA (US);
Patrick Eugene O'Neil, Cambridge, MS (US);
Elizabeth Jean O'Neil, Cambridge, MS (US);
Shankar Pal, Redmond, WA (US);
Gideon Schaller, Bellevue, WA (US);
Istvan Cseri, Redmond, WA (US);
Jose A. Blakeley, Bothell, WA (US);
Nigel Clifton Westbury, Mercer Island, WA (US);
Sameet Agarwal, Redmond, WA (US);
F. Soner Terek, Bellevue, WA (US);
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
A technique for representing the structure of hierarchically-organized data in a non-hierarchical data structure, such as a relation. The hierarchically-organized data is represented as a tree, and each node in the tree is assigned a position identifier that represents both the depth level of the node within the hierarchy, and its ancestor/descendant relationship to other nodes. The data represented by each node, as well as its position identifier, is stored in a row of a relational database, thereby capturing the hierarchical structure of the data in such relational database. A technique is provided for the compressed storage of position identifiers in a format that allows an efficient bytewise comparison of position identifiers to determine relative order and ancestry.