Method of indexing a hierarchical data structure

A computer-implemented method of indexing a hierarchical product structure comprising a product and a plurality of items associated with the product, wherein each item of the plurality of items shares a parent-child relationship with at least one other item or the product, the method comprising:

• generating a packed configuration-independent index of the hierarchical product structure by enumerating an unconfigured item-path from the product to an item for each item of the plurality of items;
• identifying one or more identical unconfigured item-paths within packed configuration-independent index;
• maintaining only one unconfigured item-path of one or more unconfigured item-paths for each identified identical unconfigured item-path of the one or more identical unconfigured item-paths to form an updated configuration-independent index;
• and
• storing or providing the updated configuration-independent index of the hierarchical product structure.

A computer-implemented method of filtering queries in an index of a hierarchical product structure, the method comprising:

• accessing the index of the hierarchical product structure, wherein the index of the hierarchical product structure has been generated by:
• (1) generating a packed configuration-independent index of the hierarchical product structure by enumerating an unconfigured item-path from a product to an item for each item of a plurality of items;
• (2) identifying one or more identical unconfigured item-paths within packed configuration-independent index;
• (3) maintaining only one unconfigured item-path of one or more unconfigured item-paths for each identified identical unconfigured item-path of the one or more identical unconfigured item-paths to form an updated configuration-independent index;
• and (4) storing or providing the updated configuration-independent index of the hierarchical product structure;
• filtering structure content queries against the packed configuration-independent index to identify an item-path;
• filtering spatial location queries against a spatial-bounds index to identify a box path;
• and
• re-filtering a structure content query of the structure content queries and/or a spatial location query of the spatial location queries against a configured product structure generated from box path.