Data cells, and a system and method for accessing data in a data cell
View Patent ↗A method and system is presented for storing data in data cells containing only a single element of data. Each data cell includes four components: an Entity Instance identifier (“O”), an Entity Type identifier (“E”) an Attribute Type identifier (“A”), and an Attribute Value (“V”). Groups of cells with identical O and E values constitute a cell set. Every cell contains a unique combination of O, E, A, and V. Relationships between cell sets are established by creating two synapse cells. The first synapse cell has O and E values of the first cell and has A and V values equal to the E and O value, respectively, of the second cell. The second synapse cell, has O and E values of the second cell, and has as its A and V values the E and O value, respectively, of the first cell set.
1. A computer readable storage media comprising a collection of data relating to multiple instances of multiple entity types, the computer readable storage media comprising:
a computer readable memory having a plurality of data cells containing all of the data in the collection, with each data cell being a data construct containing
i) a single instance identifier value identifying one specific instance of a specific entity type;
ii) a single attribute type identifier value identifying one specific attribute type for the specific entity type; and
iii) an attribute value for the identified one specific attribute type, such that each data cell contains the attribute value for only the one specific attribute type and for only the one specific instance of the specific entity type and does not contain the attribute value for any other attribute type or any other instance of the specific entity type;
wherein each data cell is self-identifying.
2. The data collection of claim 1 , wherein each data cell further contains:
iv) a single entity identifier value identifying the specific entity type.
3. The data collection of claim 2 , wherein at least two data cells having the same instance identifier value and the same entity identifier value together define a cell set containing all of the data in the collection relating to the one specific instance of the one specific entity type.
4. The data collection of claim 2 , wherein at least one data cell has an attribute value that contains multiple, separate values relating to the specific attribute type of the specific instance of the specific entity type.
5. The data collection of claim 2 , wherein each data cell has only four fields relating to actual data, the four fields containing the instance identifier value, the entity identifier value, the attribute type identifier, and the attribute value.
6. The data collection of claim 5 , wherein no two data cells contain the same values in all of the four fields.
7. A method of creating a collection of data cells stored on a computer system, wherein each data cell contains a single element of data relating to a specific instance of an entity, the method comprising:
a) creating a first and a second data cell stored on the computer system, both having the same format and fields, the first and second data cell each containing a first field, a second field, a third field, and a fourth field, each field having a value;
b) creating a linking cell stored on the computer system defining an association between the first data cell and the second data cell, the linking cell having four fields each having values, the value of two of the fields of the linking cell being the same as the values of the first and second fields of the first data cell; the value of the remaining two fields of the linking cell being the same as the values of the first and second fields of the second data cell.
8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the linking cell has the same format as the first and second data cells.
9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the linking cell utilizes a flag to indicate that the linking cell contains linking information.
10. The method of 8 , wherein the first, second, and linking cells each contain the following four fields as their first, second, third, and fourth fields:
i) an entity instance field;
ii) an entity type field;
iii) an attribute type field; and
iv) an attribute value field.
11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the linking cell contains the entity instance field value and the entity type field value of the first data cell as the values of its own entity instance field and its entity type field, respectively; and further wherein the linking cell contains the entity instance field value and the entity type field value of the second data cell as the values of its own attribute value field and its attribute type field, respectively.
12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising a second linking cell also having an entity instance field, an entity type field, an attribute type field, and an attribute value field, wherein the second linking cell contains the entity instance field value and the entity type field value of the second data cell as the values of its own entity instance field and its entity type field, respectively; and further wherein the second linking cell contains the entity instance field value and the entity type field value of the first data cell as the values of its own attribute value field and its attribute type field, respectively.