Patent ID: 9747164
Date: 2017-08-29
CPC Classifications: G06F,H04L

Claim:
1. A method for accessing data comprising: storing, on disk, a plurality of pages, each page comprising a plurality of entries; storing, in memory, a plurality of page headers, each page header corresponding to a respective page of the plurality of pages, each page header comprising a page number identifying the respective page, a first guide word, and a second guide word, wherein the first and second guide words define minimum and maximum name values, respectively, of entries on the respective page; upon a request to determine if an entry associated with a name value exists, scanning the first and second guide words of the plurality of page headers stored in memory; identifying a particular page number in a particular page header when, based on the scan, the name value is between first and second guide words of the particular page header; checking in memory pages for a page identified by the particular page number; upon determining that the page is not in memory, locating the page on disk and loading, subject to a page replacement algorithm, the page into memory; and examining the page loaded into memory to determine whether the entry exists on the page.