9. A database storage method according to claim 1, wherein one of the compaction methods is pattern suppression, comprising the steps of: identifying a pattern, the pattern being a character which occurs repeatedly at a specific character position of the data values; identifying those data values which contain the pattern; creating a plurality of compacted data values, the compacted data values being the data values, with the pattern deleted from the data values which contain the pattern; and associating one of a plurality of storage method designations with each of the compacted data values, such that each of the designations indicate whether the pattern was deleted from one of the compacted data values contained in one of the compacted records.
1. A database storage method for encoding a database structure having a plurality of data records and a plurality of data fields, said method comprising the following steps: selecting a field of the database structure from the plurality of data fields; reading a plurality of data values from the selected field, each individual data value being read from a separate record; determining a plurality of field characteristics and a plurality of compaction criteria, the field characteristics being dependent on the data values within the selected field and the compaction criteria corresponding to a plurality of compaction methods wherein each compaction method has a relative priority level; identifying a first field characteristic from said plurality of field characteristics which satisfies a corresponding one of said compaction criteria, said first field characteristic corresponding to a first compaction method with the highest priority level of any remaining compaction methods which also have compaction criteria satisfied by a corresponding field characteristic; applying the first compaction method to the selected field to create a plurality of compacted data values, the compacted data values being reduced storage equivalents of the data values; and storing the compacted data values in a plurality of compacted records.