Patent ID: 8260822

Claim:
A non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions for representing data in a data warehouse for historical and current reporting, executable by the computer to cause the computer to: receive effective dated dimensions in sequential rows; set date attributes associated with the effective dated dimensions for each row, the date attributes including an effective to date, an effective from date, an effective start date, and an effective end date; set the effective start date of a first row to a date prior to any of the date attributes; set the effective end date of a last row to a date after any of the date attributes; set the effective to date of a row between the first row and the last row to one day minus the effective from date of a previous row; sort the sequential rows based on a primary key and a created date; key the rows based on the primary key; and read the rows of the effective dated dimensions sequentially based on an effective date, a natural key, and the created date.