the u201c is null u201d operator may not always be granular enough since it does not distinguish between the various cases of missing data such as data missing entirely from all layers missing from the current layer but inherited from some other layer and so on for example if the current audience identifier is 1 then for a lookup or multi value lookup field the audiences with identifiers 1 0 and 4 are checked as per the second row of the audience order table shown in fig3 in combination with the name_id for a particular name via the data attribute table for example if there is any value with a name_id of 17 and an audience identifier of 1 0 or 4 then a value exists and u201c is not null u201d returns true fig5 shows the possible outcomes for searching using the coarse grain operators u201c is null u201d and u201c is not null u201d fig6 shows value or link location cases for a three level inheritance embodiment for example if a value or link exists in a particular layer a bullet is shown in the respective cell again embodiments of the invention may utilize any level of indirection and the non lookup values shown in the main data table of fig1 versus the lookup values shown in the data attribute table of fig2 are exemplary and.