Compressed prefix matching database searching

Abstract From the Canadian patent

Aspects of the invention include a method of conducting a reduced length search along a search path. A node which would otherwise occur between a previous and a following node in the search path is eliminated, and information is stored as to whether, had said eliminated node been present the search would, have proceeded to the following node. During the search a, search argument is compared with the stored information and the, search effectively progresses from the previous node directly to the following node if the comparison is positive. In preferred embodiments, some nodes provide result values for the search and, a node is eliminated only if its presence would not affect the result …