HIERARCHICAL INTERFACE TO ATTRIBUTE BASED DATABASE

The present invention provides a hierarchical interface to an attribute based database. The method includes organizing a number of classifiers of data into a hierarchical structure and organizing the data into the hierarchical data structure according to the classifiers to which the data is linked. The hierarchical data structure can be a file system directory tree structure. The files system directory tree structure can be according to the NFS protocol. A request is received from a client, the request formatted according to the NFS protocol. The request is translated into a database query. A result is produced which is formatted according to the NFS protocol and the result is sent to the client. The present invention allows data to be presented in rearrange-able order based on a client view and classifiers, bound and unbound. The present invention also restricts access to files in a flexible manner.