Patent ID: 7454435

Claim:
A system that facilitates creating a data structure to provide a granular data change, comprising: an interface that receives at least one data change input related to a target within hierarchical data; a change definition component that builds a data structure to provide a granular update to the target which is proportional to the data change input and compiles the data structure, wherein the data structure is a tree that includes 1) an assignment node that is a change to a property value represented by a leaf node, and 2) a traversal node that is a non-leaf node that represents a nested type that is a member of at least one of a top level property and a nested type property; an unpack component that receives the compiled data structure and applies the data structure to an in-memory object; translates a compiled data structure into a nested structured query language (SQL) update statement; unpack unpacks a compiled data structure to allow the application of the granular change, wherein the unpack component targets a granular property related to the hierarchical data such that the cost of the data change operation is proportional to the amount of data change to be implemented; an assignment component that utilizes an assignment value list to provide a value that corresponds to the data change input to be applied to the target within the hierarchical data; and a security component that employs a security technique and associates a user profile with a particular data change, the security technique is at least one of a login, a password, a biometric indicia, a voice recognition, and a security level associated with a user.