Patent ID: 7162478

Claim:
A system for eliminating fragments in the evaluation of a query that references both a parent and a child table in a relational database, comprising a processor configured for: establishing a correlated fragmentation scheme using key values to define a M:N relationship between M fragments of a fragmented parent table and N fragments of the child table, the key being a child key for the child table and a parent key for the parent table, a child key value representing a reference to a parent row in the parent table; obtaining a set of child key values for the child rows satisfying the query predicate; using the set of child key values to identify a set of parent table fragments, the set of parent table fragments being all the fragments of the parent table having a row that is referenced by any of the set of child key values; using any predicate or other qualifier on the parent table to further reduce the set of parent table fragment identifiers through the process fragment elimination; and using the identified set of parent table fragments and the correlated fragmentation scheme to identify a set of child table fragments to be scanned; and using the identified set of parent table fragments as the basis for a scan of the parent table.