Patent ID: 7627609

Claim:
A method of tracking a plurality of objects being stored in a computer system, comprising: retrieving a hint comprising at least one hash value from an index of objects stored in the computer system; obtaining a hash value from the hint; transforming the hash value to contain instances of the flag; wherein transforming the hash value includes identifying instances of a mapped value in the hash value wherein transforming the hash value includes replacing an instance of the mapped value with an instance of the flag; wherein transforming the hash value includes encoding the hash value into another base; wherein encoding the hash value into another base includes encoding the hash value into another higher base; wherein encoding the hash value into another base includes reducing space for storing the encoded hash value; wherein reducing space for storing the encoded hash value includes dropping a portion not used for storing the encoded hash value; wherein dropping the portion not used for storing the encoded hash value includes dropping a most significant byte; and determining from the hash value whether an object has been stored in the computer system; and utilizing the flag in the index as an indicator to indicate that an endpoint has been reached.