Patent ID: 8838576

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, by at least one server, a query comprising a plurality of query terms; partitioning processing of the query into a plurality of posting list intersection tasks, each posting list intersection task to perform a partial intersection of a portion of each of at least two posting lists to identify a set of documents identified in the portion of each of the at least two posting lists processed by the posting list intersection task as containing the query terms associated with the at least two posting lists, each partial intersection comprising an intersection of the portion of each of the at least two posting lists, wherein the portion of a given one of the at least two posting lists is determinative of the portion of remaining ones of the at least two posting lists; performing, using a plurality of processing cores executing in parallel, the plurality of posting list intersection tasks, each posting list intersection task performing a partial intersection of the portion of each of the at least two posting lists processed by the posting list intersection task; and identifying, by the at least one server, a result set of documents from the set of documents identified by each of the posting list intersection tasks as a response to the received query.