An approach to structured record retrieval permits transmission and storage of records in a native concise format, without requiring that the records be interpreted and stored in a tabular form. Such storage of the records in a tabular form might double the space required, and more generally, requires substantially more space in applications in which there are many optional elements. In some embodiments, each message is parsed according to a specification of the message structure (e.g., according to a “grammar” for the message), and during parsing field values in predefined positions in the structure are extracted and added to an index structure that associates record identifiers with the (position, value) pairs.