Query result iteration
AssigneeApple Inc.
InventorJohn Martin Hoernkvist
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Systems and methods for processing an index are described. A pulse in an inverted index refers to a group of items that do not occur in any other pulse in the index. When processing a query against an inverted index in which pulses are present, the query is processed against a single pulse. The end of the pulse is determined based on the characteristics of the pulse and the linked list nodes that comprise the postings lists from which the index was generated. In some embodiments, index updates are applied to the query result obtained from a single pulse to provide an efficient and up to date query result.
Claims5
A machine implemented method of querying an inverted index, the method comprising:
- receiving a query against an index having pulses comprising a group of item IDs not occurring in any other pulse in the index;
- processing the query starting with a node in a current pulse of the index, where the starting node is obtained from a sorted queue of nodes containing a search term corresponding to the query;
- determining whether a next node in the sorted queue of nodes is beyond an end of the current pulse.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.