1. A method comprising the steps of: storing a plurality of data elements in a data structure; defining at least one general mask and a data structure description that describes the data elements in the data structure, wherein the data structure comprises one or more of a serial stream, an ordered set comprised of subsets, and a hierarchical data structure comprised of subgraphs, wherein each data element has one or more of a node position, a bit position and a subset position; defining, by using the data structure description, one or more links, each of the links locating one or more data elements in the data structure and, by using the general mask, a particular mask comprising one or more links, each of the links providing access to a data element; and retrieving, by using one of the links, a corresponding one of the data elements.