Patent ID: 7133885

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of operating a database comprising: providing a set of entries comprising at least one entry, the at least one entry comprising columns, one or more of the columns being varying length columns and zero or more of the columns being fixed length columns, the at least one entry comprising an offset array having one or more offsets associated with the one or more varying length columns, respectively, the offset associated with a last varying length column having an offset-value of an ending position of the entry, other offsets having offset-values of ending positions of the associated varying length columns, respectively; building a column-extraction-table comprising at least one offset-array-number specifying the offset that is associated with a predecessor varying length column, if any, preceding at least one of the columns; and accessing information in a particular column of a particular entry of the set of entries based on a starting position of the particular column, the particular entry having a particular offset array, the starting position being based on the offset-value of the offset of the particular offset array that is associated with the predecessor varying length column, if any, preceding said particular column, the offset of the particular offset array being specified by the offset-array-number that is associated with the particular column in the column-extraction-table, and a length of any fixed length columns between the predecessor varying length column and the particular column.