Patent ID: 8341153

Claim:
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium, comprising executable instructions to: order data elements comprising columns of a table in a binary tree data structure using primary values of the data elements and selected secondary values of the data elements required to resolve a position of a particular data element in the binary tree data structure, where the remaining secondary data values are in a do not care state, each data element comprising a plurality of fields of various data types; compare a new primary data value of a new data element to the primary data value of a data element at a root node of the binary tree data structure and, only if necessary to resolve the position of the new data element, compare a new secondary data value to the secondary data value at the root node to determine whether the new data element or the data element at the root node should be relocated in the binary tree data structure; and retrieve data elements from the binary tree data structure into a sorted list while maintaining a heap property of the binary tree data structure, the data elements in the sorted list having do not care state values.