System of organizing catalog data for searching and retrieval

The present invention relates to the field of databases and data warehousing, and in particular to a system for searching and retrieving information from catalogs. A method, an apparatus, and a computer program product for organizing and searching catalogs based on compacting a hierarchical structure () into related arrays (and ) are disclosed. This involves the steps of: storing indices () according to categories and subcategories in an array of indices (), storing the keys (SS) according to the categories and subcategories in an array () of keys, and linking each index of the array () of indices with one or more corresponding keys of the array () of keys corresponding to the category or subcategory associated with the index. The indices of a category or subcategory are stored contiguously in the array (). Each index has one or more pointers recording the interrelationship of the indices. The keys of a given index are also stored contiguously with keys of any indices at the same corresponding category or subcategory level.