Patent ID: 7644082

Claim:
In a computing environment, one or more computer readable storage media, the one or more computer readable storage media comprising: a pre-filter data structure for pre-indexing identifiers, wherein the identifiers represent searchable data elements or combinations of data elements in a data store and wherein an identifier being pre-indexed in the data structure indicates that the corresponding data element or combination of data elements may be present in the data store, and wherein absence of the identifier being indexed in the data structure can be used to indicate that the corresponding data element or combination of data elements is not present in the data store, such that when it is known that a data element or combination of data elements does not exist in the data store, expensive search and retrieval operations on the data store can be avoided, the data structure comprising: a first field, wherein the first field comprises a first plurality of binary bits, each binary bit corresponding to an identifier, wherein a first particular bit in the first plurality of binary bits is set, and wherein the first particular bit corresponds to an identifier generated for a first data element that is stored in the data store, and wherein a second particular bit in the first plurality of binary bits is also set, wherein the second particular bit corresponds to an identifier generated for a first combination of data elements that is stored in the data store, the first combination of data elements including the first data element.