Patent ID: 7370037

Claim:
A method for processing a text search query in a collection of documents, wherein a full posting index is generated, the full posting index comprising one or more first index terms and a full posting list for each first index term, enumerating occurrences of said first index terms in the documents of the collection; and wherein a text search query comprises one or more search conditions on search terms, said one or more search conditions being translated into one or more conditions on said one or more first index terms to provide one or more translated conditions; said method comprising: generating at least one short posting index comprising one or more second index terms and a short posting list for each second index term, enumerating the documents in which said one or more second index terms occur; generating one or more filter conditions and one or more complementary conditions to represent a full content of said one or more translated conditions, wherein said one or more filter conditions approximate said one or more translated conditions; and processing said one or more filter conditions using said short posting index and said one or more complementary conditions using said full posting index to provide a query result.