Patent ID: 8432398

Claim:
One or more tangible computer storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon, that when executed, cause a computing device to perform a method for determining whether an output node in a dependency graph has a characteristic based on a plurality of characteristics of one or more input nodes, the method comprising: identifying the characteristic from the plurality of characteristics that is to be calculated for the output node; generating the dependency graph that is unique to the characteristic, wherein the dependency graph has a plurality of nodes and illustrates dependency of each node in relation to other nodes, and wherein the nodes represent one or more of a value, a condition, or a tree structure; determining that an operation associated with the characteristic is an intersection; identifying external nodes in the dependency graph that do not depend on the other nodes and that have been previously calculated; analyzing each of the external nodes to determine whether each has the characteristic; and determining whether the output node of the dependency graph has the characteristic, wherein the output node has the characteristic only if all of the external nodes in the dependency graph also have the characteristic.