Patent ID: 8744999

Claim:
A method for providing identifier compression, the method comprising: creating a new document in an application; receiving a plurality of changes to the document; assigning an extended identifier to at least a first change and a second change of the plurality of changes, wherein the extended identifier comprises a globally unique identifier (GUID) component and an integer component; determining whether at least one first extended identifier assigned to the first change and at least one second extended identifier assigned to the second change each comprise a same (GUID) component; and in response to determining that the at least one first extended identifier and the at least one second extended identifier each comprise the same (GUID) component: mapping the same GUID component to a range of indices, assigning a first index of the range of indices to represent the same GUID component in the first extended identifier, replacing the same GUID component in the first extended identifier with the first index, assigning a second index of the range of indices to represent the same GUID component in the second extended identifier, and replacing the same GUID component in the second extended identifier with the second index.