SEARCH AND NAVIGATION SYSTEM AND METHOD USING CATEGORY INTERSECTION PRE-COMPUTATION

A user can access database documents across category hierarchies by executing a computer program that operates on a pre-computed intersection list. The intersection list comprises a plurality of report keys which are generated off-line by combining index terms in database documents with category descriptors to form text strings having a name/value type format. All report keys from all documents are combined and sorted to determine a set of unique report keys. Each unique report key is updated with a count of the number of documents sharing the same report key. Additionally, each updated report key includes a pointer to a bit-map corresponding to the lowest level category in a category hierarchy. The updated report keys are resorted to provide an intersection list for retrieving document information from databases and other information sources in response to the user's online search queries.