1. A method of managing associations between keys and values within a computer processing system, comprising: inputting requests to store associations between keys and data values corresponding to the keys; storing the associations in entry nodes within a data structure represented as a hash-based directed acyclic graph (HDAG); and upon receipt of a data value request that includes a specified function of a request key, together with satisfaction of any additional access criterion, automatically providing a return data value corresponding to the request key, wherein the return data value has been generated based on at least one of the associations that involve the request key, wherein the data values are managed in value list nodes and references to the value list nodes are generated using a hashing algorithm that is different than one or more hashing algorithms used to generate the HDAG.