Patent ID: 7240066

Claim:
In a computing system that processing characters encoded according to an expandable alphabet standard, a method for processing one or more strings of data even when characters in the one or more strings of data are undefined by an obsolete index stored in a first database, the obsolete index including code points for the expandable alphabet standard, the method comprising: receiving one or more strings of data encoded according to an encoded expandable alphabet standard; accessing an obsolete index for the encoded expandable alphabet standard used to encode the received one or more strings of data, wherein the index associates a numerical value to each of a plurality of characters, and such that each numerical value is a code point; identifying one or more undefined code points in the received one or more strings, wherein the undefined code points are not associated with any character by the obsolete index; tracking each string including undefined code points; for each undefined code point not associated with a character by the obsolete index, creating an entry in a table stored in a second database; processing the tracked strings outside the processing of strings including only defined code points which are associated with characters by the obsolete index; and updating the obsolete index to produce an updated index in the first database, the updated index including newly defined code points which were undefined in the obsolete index.