Importance

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Abstract

A method and mechanism are provided for creating, maintaining, and using a hierarchical index to efficiently access information in a relational system based on a pathnames, thus emulating a hierarchically organized system. Each item that has any children in the emulated hierarchical system has an index entry in the index. The index entries in the index are linked together in a way that reflects the hierarchical relationship between the items associated with the index entries. Pathname resolution is performed by following direct links between the index entries associated with the items in a pathname, according to the sequence of the filenames within the pathname. By using an index whose index entries are linked in this manner, the process of accessing the items based on their pathnames is significantly accelerated, and the number of disk accesses performed during that process is significantly reduced.

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First Claim