Invertible Bloom Lookup Tables

TL;DR

This paper introduces an invertible Bloom lookup table that supports insertion, deletion, lookup, and complete listing of key-value pairs, with robustness to errors and applications in databases and networking.

Contribution

It presents a novel data structure that extends Bloom filters to enable content listing and error robustness, surpassing traditional limitations.

Findings

Supports complete listing of key-value pairs with high probability

Handles exceeding the threshold during normal operation

Robust to certain standard errors like deletions and duplicate insertions

Abstract

We present a version of the Bloom filter data structure that supports not only the insertion, deletion, and lookup of key-value pairs, but also allows a complete listing of its contents with high probability, as long the number of key-value pairs is below a designed threshold. Our structure allows the number of key-value pairs to greatly exceed this threshold during normal operation. Exceeding the threshold simply temporarily prevents content listing and reduces the probability of a successful lookup. If later entries are deleted to return the structure below the threshold, everything again functions appropriately. We also show that simple variations of our structure are robust to certain standard errors, such as the deletion of a key without a corresponding insertion or the insertion of two distinct values for a key. The properties of our structure make it suitable for several applications, including database and networking applications that we highlight.