Disclosed is a method of encoding JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) documents in an inverted index, wherein a tree representation of a JSON document is first generated, and, next, the JSON document is shredded into a list of tuples for each atom node, n, in the tree, where value is a label associated with n, path is a concatenation of node labels associated with ancestors of n, type is a description of a type of value, and jdewey of n is a partial Dewey code of its closest ancestor array node, if one exists, or empty, otherwise. Lastly, an inverted index is built using as index term, and jdewey as payload. A method is also described to search the inverted index.