Patent Application of Vitit Kantabutra for TITLE : INTENTIONALLY-LINKED ENTITIES : A GENERAL-PURPOSE DATABASE SYSTEM CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

In accordance with one embodiment the subject of the patent is a method for storing a database comprising entity objects or data structures representing the data entities, and relationship objects or data structures representing the relationships amongst the entities. Each relationship object or data structure possesses links to the entity objects or data structures that play the various roles in the relationship. Where there is a link from a relationship to an entity, there is also a link from the entity to the relationship, facilitating queries and updates to the database system. It is possible and often desirable for an embodiment to permit not merely one, but possibly many (or zero) entities to play each role in a relationship. The database is value-oriented in the sense that the address of an entity is not part of the key, thus permitting value-comparison-based searches.