Patent ID: 7143107

Claim:
A method of generating a customized report from relational data stored in a database, said method comprising: providing metadata associated with the data in the database, said metadata describing the data according to one or more characteristics of the data, said metadata being associated with one or more attributes and measures; defining a plurality of tables according to the characteristics of the data in the database as described by the metadata; estimating a size of each of the defined tables; receiving a request for information from a user, said request specifying search criteria, said search criteria specifying at least one of said one or more attributes and measures; and executing a predefined procedure for comparing the search criteria specified by the received request to the metadata and identifying at least one of the defined tables containing data described by metadata associated with substantially all of the attributes and the greatest number of measures specified in the search criteria, said procedure further constructing a query based on the identified at least one of the defined tables having the smallest estimated size, said query retrieving selected data from the at least one of the defined tables having the smallest estimated size in response to the request for information as a function of the characteristics of the data as described by the metadata for optimizing retrieval of the selected data.