Patent ID: 8001137

Claim:
A method of identifying connected data components in a relational database, comprising the steps of: a) receiving on a computing device a relational database, where the relational database includes a user-definable number of data components, where each data component includes a unique identifier, where each unique identifier indicates an order of the associated data component as compared to the other data components, and where each data component includes information that indicates if it is connected to another data component and, if so, the identifier of each connected data component; b) receiving on a computing device a user-definable number of data components from the relational database; c) initializing on a computing device a first table and a second table, where the first table and the second table each includes an entry for each identifier of a received data component and the identifiers, if any, of connected data components; d) initializing on a computing device a third table, where the third table includes an entry for each identifier of a received data component in the same manner as in the first table; e) initializing on a computing device a transition table, where the transition table includes entries to indicate transitions, if any, between corresponding identifiers in the second table and the third table; f) replacing on a computing device each entry in the third table with a user-definable relationship of its corresponding identifier in the second table, its corresponding connected data component identifier in the second table, and the identifier to which an equivalent identifier transitioned in the transition table; g) updating on a computing device the transition table in accordance with the results of step (f); h) updating on a computing device the second table in accordance with the results of step (f); i) returning to step (f) if the third table was changed as a result of step (f), otherwise, proceeding to step (j); and j) identifying on a computing device the received data components as connected that correspond to entries in the third table that are equal.