DESCRIPTION OF A SET-THEORETIC DATA STRUCTURE

This paper is motivated by an assumption that many problems dealing with arbitrarily related data can be expedited on a digital computer by a storage structure which allows rapid execution of operations within and between sets of datum names. Such a structure should allow any set-theoretic operation without restricting the type of sets involved, thus allowing operations on sets of sets of... sets of ordered pairs, ordered triples, ordered... sets of variable-length n-tuples, n-tuples of arbitrary sets etc., with the assurance that these operations will be executed rapidly. The purpose of a Set-Theoretic Data Structure STDS is to provide a storage representation for arbitrarily related data allowing quick access, minimal storage, and extreme flexibility. This paper will describe an STDS with the above properties utilizing a general implementation suitable for paging in a mass memory system.