Patent ID: 7917462

Claim:
A method executed by at least one processor in a database system, comprising: storing, in machine-readable storage media, a table having plural attributes, wherein plural grouping combinations of the plural attributes define corresponding plural subsets of the table, wherein at least some of the plural subsets have parents, wherein a particular one of the at least some subsets has multiple parents, wherein the multiple parents include corresponding given ones of the subsets of the table, and wherein each of the given subsets is a parent of the particular subset if the particular subset is computable from the corresponding given subset by elimination of an attribute from the corresponding given subset; computing, by the at least one processor, measures for corresponding ones of the at least some subsets, the measures representing relationships of corresponding ones of the at least some subsets to respective parents of the at least some subsets; and selecting, by the at least one processor, less than all of the at least some subsets to materialize as materialized views based on the computed measures.