Efficient mechanism for managing hierarchical relationships in a relational database system

A method and apparatus for managing hierarchical relationships in a relational database system is provided. An "orderkey" data type, which is native within a relational database system, is disclosed. The orderkey type is designed to contain values that represent the position of an entity r...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors Agarwal, Nipun, Chandrasekar, Sivasankaran, Murthy, Ravi, Krishnaprasad, Muralidhar
Format Patent
LanguageEnglish
Published 02.10.2018
Subjects
CALCULATING
COMPUTING
COUNTING
ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
PHYSICS
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Summary:A method and apparatus for managing hierarchical relationships in a relational database system is provided. An "orderkey" data type, which is native within a relational database system, is disclosed. The orderkey type is designed to contain values that represent the position of an entity relative to the positions of other entities within a hierarchy. Such values represent hierarchical relationships between those entities. Values that are of the orderkey type have properties that allow hierarchy-oriented functions to be performed in an especially efficient manner. Database functions, which operate on and/or produce values that are of the orderkey type, are also disclosed. Such functions can be placed within SQL statements that a database server executes, for example. In response to executing SQL statements that contain such functions, the database server performs hierarchy-oriented operations in a highly efficient manner.
Bibliography:Application Number: US20070932423