Abstract: A system such as a database management system determines a rule to impose sorted order upon a column without applying a sorting algorithm to the column and stores the rule to be applied to sort the column. In an embodiment, a permutation is the rule. The column, in an embodiment, is a column of a database table. In some cases, the rule is used to efficiently impose a correct sorted order on a subset of unsorted columns without the use of a sorting algorithm. In some cases, the rule is generated based at least in part on another column that is sorted using a sorting algorithm such as quicksort.

Abstract: Late encoding binding can be applied to data added to a data set according to the encoding history for the data set. When a request to add data is received, an evaluation of the encoding history can determine whether a currently specified encoding for the data can be changed. If changeable, a different encoding scheme for the data may be identified and the data added to the data set according to the different encoding scheme.