Patent ID: 7725471

Claim:
A computer program product comprising: a computer readable medium having computer executable instructions means embodied in said computer readable medium for organizing catalog information in a database structure to provide access to said catalog information, said computer executable instructions in said computer program product comprising: computer readable program code means for causing a computer to obtain a set of catalog data; computer readable program code means for causing said computer to obtain a set of qualifier fields in said set of catalog data using a rule set comprising a first set of sparsity values associated with each one in said set of qualifier fields; computer readable program code means for causing said computer to obtain a set of lookup fields in said set of catalog data using said rule set, wherein said rule set further comprises a plurality of second sparsity values associated with each one in said set of lookup fields; computer readable program code means for causing said computer to obtain at least one primary table; computer readable program code means for causing said computer to obtain at least one sub-table comprising said set of lookup fields having at least one relationship with said at least one primary table, wherein each of said set of lookup fields comprises legal values, wherein said at least one sub-table comprises at least one sub-table record having sub-table fields containing legal combinations for said set of catalog data; computer readable program code means for causing said computer to obtain a qualified link table per said at least one sub-table wherein said qualified link table comprises said set of qualifier fields and a plurality of association record fields, wherein each of said plurality of association record fields provides an association between at least one record in said at least one primary table and at least one record in said at least one sub-table; computer readable program code means for causing said computer to perform a search for a sub-set of catalog data using a first lookup in at least one of said at least one sub-tables, a second lookup in said at least one qualified link table and a third lookup in said at least one primary table.