METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MONITORING FILE ATTRIBUTES USING BITMAPS TO DETERMINE GROUP MEMBERSHIP OF FILES AND TO DETERMINE WHICH FILES HAVE BEEN PROCESSED

A method and system for monitoring attributes of files, such as whether a file has been read, in a computer system includes a file index organized into groups, with at least one group including one or more files. The computer system also includes a number of bitmaps. A group bitmap is maintained for each group of the file index, with each group bitmap specifying the files included within the group. A user bitmap is maintained for each user of the computer system and specifies the files in the file index that have been read by the user. When the user of the computer system enters a request to determine which files within a selected group have been examined and which remain unexamined, the preferred embodiment performs a logical AND operation on the group bitmap for the selected group and the user bitmap for the user to produce a result bitmap. The computer system determines the answers to the user's request based on the contents of the result bitmap.