Patent ID: 11907203
Assignee: ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 8:
9. A method for using at least a portion of a tree for an operation, the method comprising:
providing a tree of nodes stored in a relational database;
storing a binary path representation value as metadata for each node of a branch of the tree having a path across from older sibling nodes to younger sibling nodes at a given level and to child nodes at a next level, wherein of the sibling nodes in the given level, only an oldest child is directly connected to a parent node,
wherein the binary path representation value for a current node that is a younger sibling node in the path is the binary path representation value of a directly connected older sibling node in the path that is appended with an additional binary path representation value for the current node,
wherein the branch includes a terminator node that has no younger sibling and no younger child node, and the binary path representation value of the terminator node incorporates the binary path representation value of each node in the branch from the path including at least a root node through an oldest child at a second level to each sibling child node at the second level and through each grandchildren node at a third level of the tree, wherein at least the second level or the third level includes more than one sibling node in the path;
detecting a request to perform an operation on at least a portion of the tree including the branch; and
performing the operation by accessing the metadata of the binary path representation value of the terminator node of the branch.