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 set, 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.
1. A computer readable storage media comprising
a) a plurality of data cells, each cell having an instance identifier, an entity type identifier, an attribute type identifier, and an attribute value;
b) a first subset of the data cells containing real data about specific instances of specific entity types; and
c) a second subset of the data cells containing meta data about the first subset of data cells, the meta data including associations between members of the first subset of data cells;
wherein the storage media has no construct external to the data cells that associates one data cell with another data cell.
2. The computer readable storage media of claim 1 , wherein each of the data cells has a flagging mechanism to indicate whether the cell is part of the second subset.
3. The computer readable storage media of claim 1 , wherein the first subset of data cells further comprises:
i) a first group of data cells containing attribute values for a first instance of a first entity type, including attribute values for at least a first and second attribute type; and
ii) a second group of data cells containing attribute values for a second instance of the first entity type, including attribute values for at least the first and second attribute type.
4. The computer readable storage media of claim 3 , wherein the first subset of data cells further comprises:
iii) a third group of data cells containing attribute values for a specific instance of a second entity type.
5. The computer readable storage media of claim 4 , wherein the second subset of data cells further comprises a first linking cell linking the first group of data cells to the third group of data cells.
6. The computer readable storage media of claim 4 , wherein all cells within any of the first, second, or third group of data cells have the same entity type identifier and the same instance identifier, further wherein the first and second groups each have the same entity type but a different instance identifier, and further wherein the third group has a different entity type than that of the first and second group.
7. The computer readable storage media of claim 6 , wherein the second subset of data cells further comprises a first linking cell linking the first group of data cells to the third group of data cells, the first linking cell having:
i) an entity type equal to the entity type of the first group of cells;
ii) an instance identifier equal to the instance identifier of the first group of data cells;
iii) an attribute type equal to the entity type of the third group of data cells; and
iv) an attribute value equal to the instance identifier of the third group of data cells.
8. The computer readable storage media of claim 7 , wherein the second subset of data cells further comprises a second linking cell linking the third group of data cells to the first group of data cells, the second linking cell having:
i) an entity type equal to the entity type of the third group of cells;
ii) an instance identifier equal to the instance identifier of the third group of data cells;
iii) an attribute type equal to the entity type of the first group of data cells; and
iv) an attribute value equal to the instance identifier of the first group of data cells.
9. The computer readable storage media of claim 7 , wherein each of the data cells has a flagging mechanism to indicate whether the cell is a linking cell.
10. The computer readable storage media of claim 9 , wherein the flagging mechanism is a bit value.
11. A method of establishing an association between data stored on a computer readable storage media comprising:
a) creating on the computer readable storage media a first, second, and third data cell, each of which contains
i) entity instance identifying information, and
ii) an attribute value for the entity instance;
b) storing data on the computer readable storage media in the first and second data cells;
c) creating an association between the first and second data cells within the third data cell by:
i) storing on the computer readable storage media the entity instance identifying information of the first data cell as the entity instance identifying information of the third data cell; and
ii) storing on the computer readable storage media the entity instance identifying information of the second data cell as the attribute value for the third data cell.
12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the first, second, and third data cells further contain entity type information, and wherein the step of creating an association further comprising the substep of:
iii) storing on the computer readable storage media the entity type information of the first data cell as the entity type information of the third data cell.
13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the first, second, and third data cells further contain attribute type information, and wherein the step of creating an association further comprising the substep of:
iv) storing on the computer readable storage media the entity type information of the second data cell as the attribute type information of the third data cell.
14. The method of claim 11 , further comprising the steps of:
d) creating a fourth data cell on the computer readable storage media formatted in the same way as the first, second, and third data cell;
e) storing on the computer readable storage media the entity instance identifying information found in the second data cell as the entity instance identifying information of the fourth data cell, and
f) storing on the computer readable storage media the entity instance identifying information of the first data cell as the attribute value for the fourth data cell.
15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the first, second, third, and fourth data cells further contain entity type information, and further comprising the step of:
g) storing on the computer readable storage media the entity type information of the first data cell as the entity type information of the third data cell; and
h) storing on the computer readable storage media the entity type information of the second data cell as the entity type information of the fourth data cell.
16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the first, second, third, and fourth data cells further contain attribute type information, and further comprising the step of:
i) storing on the computer readable storage media the entity type information of the second data cell as the attribute type information of the third data cell; and
j) storing on the computer readable storage media the entity type information of the first data cell as the attribute type information of the fourth data cell.