Patent ID: 8140961

Claim:
An automated method, implemented by a computing device, to align column values to proper byte boundaries for rapid scanning in a parallel processing database system, the method comprising: receiving, by the computing device, a table definition having a logical order of data fields, wherein the data fields include fixed length data fields and variable length data fields; and re-ordering, by the computing device, the data fields to create a physical order of data fields, wherein re-ordering includes: positioning a first fixed length data field on a proper byte boundary; positioning a remainder of the fixed length data fields after the first fixed length data field and adjacent to each other in descending order from largest byte alignment requirement to smallest byte alignment requirement, wherein a byte alignment requirement requires a beginning of a data field to be aligned to a 2 N -byte boundary, where N is a whole number; and positioning the variable length data fields after the fixed length data fields in the logical order of the variable length data fields.