Ordered index
AssigneeApple Inc.
InventorsWayne Loofbourrow, John Martin Hornkvist, Eric Richard Koebler, Yan Arrouye
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Systems and methods for processing an index are described. A postings list of items containing a particular term are ordered in a desired retrieval order, e.g., most recent first. The ordered items are inserted into an inverted index in the desired retrieval order, resulting in an ordered inverted index from which items may be efficiently retrieved in the desired retrieval order. During retrieval, items may first be retrieved from a live index, and the retrieved items from the live and ordered indexes may be merged. The retrieved items may also be filtered in accordance with the items' file grouping parameters.
Claims21
A machine implemented method for preparing an inverted index for storage on a storage medium, the method comprising:
- scanning items containing terms from which an inverted index is prepared;
- inserting the items into the inverted index in an order based on a characteristic of each item;
- and
- in response to receiving a query from a requestor, presenting items matching the query to the requestor on an output device, the matching items from the inverted index and a live index of scanned items containing terms, wherein the live index is stored on a network storage device and is separate from the inverted index.
A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium having instructions which, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform a method for preparing an inverted index for storage on a storage medium, the method comprising:
- scanning items containing terms from which an inverted index is prepared;
- inserting the items into the inverted index in an order based on a characteristic of each item;
- and
- in response to receiving a query from a requestor, presenting items matching the query to the requestor via an output device, the matching items from the inverted index and a live index of scanned items containing terms, wherein the live index is stored on a network storage device and is separate from the inverted index.
An electronic device comprising:
- an output device;
- a memory;
- a network interface configured to communicate with a network storage device;
- a processing system programmed with executable instructions that, when executed, perform a machine implemented method comprising:
- scanning items containing terms from which an inverted index is prepared;
- inserting the items into the inverted index in an order based on a characteristic of each item;
- in response to receiving a query from a requestor, presenting items matching the query to the requestor on the output device, the matching items from the inverted index and a live index of scanned items containing terms, wherein the live index is stored on the network storage device and is separate from the inverted index.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.