Appeal No. 1999-0855
Application No. 08/730,468
is created while data record identifiers are read into the
system. Appellant asserts at page 6 of the specification
that, by combining the initialization and building of the sort
tree in accordance with the number of data records, a sort
tree is created that is only large enough to hold the data
records entered, thereby reducing the amount of occupied
memory space.
Claim 17 is illustrative of the invention and reads as
follows:
17. A method of sorting and storing data in a
computer system, the computer system including a Central
Processor Unit (CPU), nonvolatile memory accessible by
the CPU, and working memory associated with the CPU, the
nonvolatile memory including a plurality of data records
stored therein, comprising the steps of:
reading said data records from said nonvolatile
memory and storing them in said volatile working memory;
assigning a unique data record identifier to
each data record in said volatile memory;
creating a sort tree in said volatile memory,
said sort tree including a plurality of nodes allocated
to locations in said volatile memory, said nodes
including a plurality of exterior nodes, a plurality of
interior nodes, and a root node;
initializing said sort tree in combination with
entry of said data record identifiers into said sort tree
so as to add nodes to the sort tree in accordance with a
number of data records added, so that the sort tree is
2
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