Patent ID: 7185019

Claim:
A system for indexing data and merging indexes within a database management system, in which a need for an in-memory table tracking currency of data is eliminated, the system comprising: a module being executed by a processor that: assigns a temporal indicator associated with a start time of a crawl to an instance of an index generated by the crawl, wherein the instance of the index comprises a first index of a plurality of indexes generated by the crawl, wherein the plurality of indexes are part of an indexing system of the database management system, wherein the crawl is a first crawl, the instance is a first instance, and the temporal indicator is a first temporal indicator; assigns the first instance of the index to a set of instances to be merged; assigns a second temporal indicator associated with a start time of a second crawl to a second instance of an index generated by the second crawl; assigns the second instance of the index to the set of instances to be merged; validates the set of instances to be merged, generating a set of valid instances, wherein validating the set of instances of the index comprises: determining that the first temporal indicator is a maximum temporal indicator associated with the set of instances; in response to determining that the second temporal indicator is identical to the maximum temporal indicator, merging the set of valid instances to create a merged index instance.