Indexing and Hashing

(emphasis on B+ trees)
By Huy Nguyen
Cs157b
0900-1015 TR
Lee, Sin-Min

Storage
We have been studying database languages
and queries and have yet to study how data is
stored.
We will look at how data is accessed and the
different Index methods used.
Different types index methods have good and
bad qualities which I will try to address.

Indices
Indices is used to look up, input and delete
data in a ordered manner.
Speed and efficiency is a main goal in the
different types of Indexing.
Speed and efficiency includes access type,
access time, insertion time, deletion time,
and space overhead.

Definitions
Pointer- identifies the disk block and offset
in the disk block.
Index record- holds search key value and
pointers to the records with the value.
Clustering index- an index whose search
key also defines the sequential order of the
file.

Index-Sequential File Organization

Index-Sequential files are files (which holds
information for data) ordered sequentially on a
search key.
Main disadvantage is that performance
degrades as file size grows for lookups and
sequential scans.
Degradation can be fixed with reorganization of
the file. Reorganization require lot of overhead
space so frequent reorganization is undesirable.

B+ Tree Index Files

Index-Sequential file organization is used
but not as much as B+ index structure.
B+ Tree indexing maintain efficiency
despite insertion and deletion of data.
They use idea of a balance tree in which
every path from the root of the tree to a
leaf is of the same length.

B+ Tree Index Files(contd)

In a B+ Tree data structures, each node
corresponds to a disk block.
Each node is kept between half-full and
completely full.
A node in a B+- tree has n-1 search key
values K1, K2.Kn-1 and n pointers P1,
P2Pn.

B+ Tree Index Files(contd)

Search-key values are kept in sorted
order.
Leaf nodes store the records instead of
pointers to records.
Search-key values are kept in sorted order

B+ Tree Index Files(contd)

Pointer P points to a file record with a
search key value of a K.
Each leaf holds up to n-1 values .
A non-leaf node can hold up to n pointers
and must hold n/2 ceiling pointers.

B+ Tree Index Files(contd)

Number of pointers in a node is called fan
out of a node.
The root must hold at least 2 pointers but
can have less than n/2.

Example of B+-Tree of Order 4 (with

L = 5)
41

22
12
15
20

22
24
27
28
29

30

35

45

49

30 35 41 45
32 37 43 46
34 38 44 48
39

49
51
53
54

55

75

60
55
57
58
59

67
60 67
62 72
64 74
65
66

87

91 100

75 87 91 100
77 88 94 110
80 90 97 112
83
99 114
85
120

Search in a B+ Tree
Search: Start at root; use key comparisons
to go to leaf.

Inserting a Data Entry into a B+

Tree
1) Find correct leaf node
2) Add index entry to the node
3) If enough space, done!
4) Else, split the node
Redistribute entries evenly between the current
node and the new node
5) Insert <middle key, ptr to new node> to the
parent
6) Go to Step 3

After

After

Deleting a Data Entry from a B+

Tree
1) Find correct leaf node
2) Remove the entry from the node
3) If the node is at least half full, done!
4) Else, possibly borrow some entries from a
sibling
5) If not possible, merge the node with the sibling
6) Delete the separator between the node and the
sibling from the parent node
7) Go to Step 3

After

Binary Trees VS. BTrees

Binary tree only have 2 children max.
For large files binary tree will be too high because of
the limit of children and not enough keys per records.
Btrees disk size can have many children depending
on the disk block.
Btrees are more realistic for indexing files because
they easily maintain balance and can store many
keys in only a few records.

B+ VS. B- Trees
B+ trees store redundant search key values
because index is smaller.
In a B+ tree, all pointers to data records exists at
the leaf-level nodes.
B-tree eliminates redundancy but require
additional pointers to do so.
In a B-tree, pointers to data records exist at all
levels of the tree.

References
http://www.cs.sjsu.edu/~lee/cs157b/cs157b
.html
http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~drafiei/291/note
s/6-tree-indexes.pdf
A. Silberschatz, H.F. Korth, S. Sudershan:
Database System Concepts, 5th ed.,
McGraw-Hill, 2006