The Path-Indexing Method For Indexing Terms

Abstract

The path-indexing method for indexing first-order predicate calculus terms is a refinement of the standard coordinate-indexing method. Path indexing offers much faster retrieval at a modest cost in space. Path indexing is compared with discrimination-net and codeword indexing. While discrimination-net indexing may often be the preferred method for maximum speed, path indexing is an effective alternative if discrimination-net indexing requires too much space or in certain cases in which discrimination-net indexing performs particularly poorly.