Patent ID: 7565349

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for determining a frequency distribution for a set of records, comprising: inverting a record from the set of records to form field identifier and field value records; generating a composite key value for a field identifier and field value record by concatenating the field identifier to the field value; determining a partition for the composite key value by generating a hash value for the composite key value; sending the composite key value to a parallel processor based on the partition; at the parallel processor, building a count table of frequency distributions in memory for each field in the set of records, wherein each record of each count table includes a field identifier, a field value, and a count of a number of times the field value occurs in the set of records, and wherein the field identifier concatenated with the field value comprises a composite key value; determining that at least one count table of frequency distributions is approaching a maximum amount of memory allocated to that count table; and sending the records of the at least one count table that is approaching the maximum amount of memory for sorting and additional counting, wherein the records include composite key values.