TECHNIQUE FOR COMPRESSING COLUMNS OF DATA

An approach for providing compression of a database table that uses a compiled table algorithm (CTA) that provides leverage. Data within any given column in adjacent rows is often the same as or closely related to its neighbors. Rather than storing data in each column of each row as a specific integer, floating point, or character data value, a field reconstruction instruction is stored that when executed by a decompression engine can reconstruct the data value. The field reconstruction instruction may be bit granular and may depend upon past history given that the data compression engine may preserve state as row data is streamed off a storage device.