Patent ID: 7672960

Claim:
A computer implemented method of performing an operation on a set of entities in a database, comprising: receiving a request that identifies a set of entities and a property of the entities to be operated on, wherein receiving comprises receipt by a processor functionally associated with the computer; identifying a table and a column in a relational database that correspond to the property to be operated on, wherein identifying comprises utilizing the processor to identify the table and the column; operating on the data of the identified column as a function of the request, wherein operating on the data comprises utilizing the processor to operate on the data; wherein receiving the request includes receiving an expression as a function of the property of the set of entities, and wherein operating on the data of the identified column comprises applying the expression to data in the identified column; and wherein the processor identifies and operates by executing computer-readable instructions embedded on a computer-readable storage medium; and wherein the expression includes an aggregate function, and wherein operating on the data of the identified column comprises performing the aggregate function upon data in the identified column.