Patent ID: 7181464

Claim:
In a computing system capable of accessing an instruction tree that represents execution paths for a plurality of XPATH queries, in which each node of the instruction tree represents an instruction, and in which each branch in the instruction tree when executed from the root node to terminating branch node represents an XPATH query, a method for the computing system to evaluate the plurality of XPATH queries using the instruction tree rather than separately evaluating each of the plurality of XPATH queries thereby conserving processing resources, the method comprising the following: an act of sequentially executing instructions in the instruction tree leading from the root node to a main branching node in the instruction tree; upon encountering the main branching node in the instruction tree, an act of preserving processing context for the sequential execution up to the main branching node; an act of executing instructions in the instruction tree in a first main branch of the instruction tree leading from the branching node; and upon completing the execution of the first main branch of the instruction tree; an act of using the preserved processing context to execute instructions in the instruction tree in a second main branch of the instruction tree leading from the main branching node.