UNIT-V

File Organization and Index Structure

A database consist of a huge amount of data. The data is grouped within a table in RDBMS, and
each table have related records. A user can see that the data is stored in form of tables, but in
actual this huge amount of data is stored in physical memory in form of files. 

File – A file is named collection of related information that is recorded on secondary storage such as
magnetic disks, magnetic tables and optical disks. 

What is File Organization? 

File Organization refers to the logical relationships among various records that constitute the file,
particularly with respect to the means of identification and access to any specific record. In simple
terms, Storing the files in certain order is called file Organization. File Structure refers to the format
of the label and data blocks and of any logical control record. 

File Organization
o The File is a collection of records. Using the primary key, we can access the records. The type and
frequency of access can be determined by the type of file organization which was used for a given
set of records.
o File organization is a logical relationship among various records. This method defines how file
records are mapped onto disk blocks.
o File organization is used to describe the way in which the records are stored in terms of blocks,
and the blocks are placed on the storage medium.
o The first approach to map the database to the file is to use the several files and store only one
fixed length record in any given file. An alternative approach is to structure our files so that we
can contain multiple lengths for records.
o Files of fixed length records are easier to implement than the files of variable length records.

Objective of file organization

o It contains an optimal selection of records, i.e., records can be selected as fast as possible.
o To perform insert, delete or update transaction on the records should be quick and easy.
o The duplicate records cannot be induced as a result of insert, update or delete.
o For the minimal cost of storage, records should be stored efficiently.

Types of file organization:

File organization contains various methods. These particular methods have pros and cons on the basis of
access or selection. In the file organization, the programmer decides the best-suited file organization
method according to his requirement.

Types of file organization are as follows:

Sequential file organization

o Heap file organization
o Hash file organization
o B+ file organization
o Indexed sequential access method (ISAM)
o Cluster file organization

Sequential File Organization

This method is the easiest method for file organization. In this method, files are stored sequentially. This
method can be implemented in two ways:

1. Pile File Method:

o It is a quite simple method. In this method, we store the record in a sequence, i.e., one after
another. Here, the record will be inserted in the order in which they are inserted into tables.
o In case of updating or deleting of any record, the record will be searched in the memory blocks.
When it is found, then it will be marked for deleting, and the new record is inserted.
Insertion of the new record:

Suppose we have four records R1, R3 and so on upto R9 and R8 in a sequence. Hence, records are
nothing but a row in the table. Suppose we want to insert a new record R2 in the sequence, then it will be
placed at the end of the file. Here, records are nothing but a row in any table.

2. Sorted File Method:

o In this method, the new record is always inserted at the file's end, and then it will sort the
sequence in ascending or descending order. Sorting of records is based on any primary key or
any other key.
o In the case of modification of any record, it will update the record and then sort the file, and
lastly, the updated record is placed in the right place.

Insertion of the new record:

Suppose there is a preexisting sorted sequence of four records R1, R3 and so on upto R6 and R7. Suppose
a new record R2 has to be inserted in the sequence, then it will be inserted at the end of the file, and then
it will sort the sequence.

Pros of sequential file organization

o It contains a fast and efficient method for the huge amount of data.
o In this method, files can be easily stored in cheaper storage mechanism like magnetic tapes.
o It is simple in design. It requires no much effort to store the data.
o This method is used when most of the records have to be accessed like grade calculation of a
student, generating the salary slip, etc.
o This method is used for report generation or statistical calculations.

Cons of sequential file organization

o It will waste time as we cannot jump on a particular record that is required but we have to move
sequentially which takes our time.
o Sorted file method takes more time and space for sorting the records.

Heap file organization

o It is the simplest and most basic type of organization. It works with data blocks. In heap file
organization, the records are inserted at the file's end. When the records are inserted, it doesn't
require the sorting and ordering of records.
o When the data block is full, the new record is stored in some other block. This new data block
need not to be the very next data block, but it can select any data block in the memory to store
new records. The heap file is also known as an unordered file.
o In the file, every record has a unique id, and every page in a file is of the same size. It is the DBMS
responsibility to store and manage the new records.
Pros of Heap file organization
o It is a very good method of file organization for bulk insertion. If there is a large number of data
which needs to load into the database at a time, then this method is best suited.
o In case of a small database, fetching and retrieving of records is faster than the sequential record.
Cons of Heap file organization
o This method is inefficient for the large database because it takes time to search or modify the
record.
o
o This method is inefficient for large databases.

Hash File Organization

Hash File Organization uses the computation of hash function on some fields of the records. The hash
function's output determines the location of disk block where the records are to be placed.

When a record has to be received using the hash key columns, then the address is generated, and the
whole record is retrieved using that address. In the same way, when a new record has to be inserted, then
the address is generated using the hash key and record is directly inserted. The same process is applied in
the case of delete and update.

In this method, there is no effort for searching and sorting the entire file. In this method, each record will
be stored randomly in the memory.
B+ File Organization
o B+ tree file organization is the advanced method of an indexed sequential access method. It uses
a tree-like structure to store records in File.
o It uses the same concept of key-index where the primary key is used to sort the records. For each
primary key, the value of the index is generated and mapped with the record.
o The B+ tree is similar to a binary search tree (BST), but it can have more than two children. In this
method, all the records are stored only at the leaf node. Intermediate nodes act as a pointer to
the leaf nodes. They do not contain any records.
The above B+ tree shows that:
o There is one root node of the tree, i.e., 25.
o There is an intermediary layer with nodes. They do not store the actual record. They have only
pointers to the leaf node.
o The nodes to the left of the root node contain the prior value of the root and nodes to the right
contain next value of the root, i.e., 15 and 30 respectively.
o There is only one leaf node which has only values, i.e., 10, 12, 17, 20, 24, 27 and 29.
o Searching for any record is easier as all the leaf nodes are balanced.
o In this method, searching any record can be traversed through the single path and accessed
easily.

Pros of B+ tree file organization

o In this method, searching becomes very easy as all the records are stored only in the leaf nodes
and sorted the sequential linked list.
o Traversing through the tree structure is easier and faster.
o The size of the B+ tree has no restrictions, so the number of records can increase or decrease and
the B+ tree structure can also grow or shrink.
o It is a balanced tree structure, and any insert/update/delete does not affect the performance of
tree.

Cons of B+ tree file organization

o This method is inefficient for the static method.
o
Cluster File Organization –

In cluster file organization, two or more related tables/records are stored within same file known as
clusters. These files will have two or more tables in the same data block and the key attributes
which are used to map these table together are stored only once. 

Thus it lowers the cost of searching and retrieving various records in different files as they are now
combined and kept in a single cluster. 
For example we have two tables or relation Employee and Department. These table are related to
each other. 

If we have to insert, update or delete any record we can directly do so. Data is sorted based on the
primary key or the key with which searching is done. Cluster key is the key with which joining of
the table is performed. 
Types of Cluster File Organization – There are two ways to implement this method: 
1. Indexed Clusters – 
In Indexed clustering the records are group based on the cluster key and stored together. The
above mentioned example of the Employee and Department relationship is an example of
Indexed Cluster where the records are based on the Department ID.
2. Hash Clusters – 
This is very much similar to indexed cluster with only difference that instead of storing the
records based on cluster key, we generate hash key value and store the records with same
hash key value.

Introduction of B-Tree
Introduction: 
B-Tree is a self-balancing search tree. In most of the other self-balancing search trees
(like AVL and Red-Black Trees), it is assumed that everything is in main memory. To understand
the use of B-Trees, we must think of the huge amount of data that cannot fit in main memory.
When the number of keys is high, the data is read from disk in the form of blocks. Disk access time
is very high compared to the main memory access time. The main idea of using B-Trees is to
reduce the number of disk accesses. Most of the tree operations (search, insert, delete, max,
min, ..etc ) require O(h) disk accesses where h is the height of the tree. B-tree is a fat tree. The
height of B-Trees is kept low by putting maximum possible keys in a B-Tree node. Generally, the
B-Tree node size is kept equal to the disk block size. Since the height of the B-tree is low so total
disk accesses for most of the operations are reduced significantly compared to balanced Binary
Search Trees like AVL Tree, Red-Black Tree, ..etc.
Time Complexity of B-Tree: 

“n” is the total number of elements

in the B-tree.
Properties of B-Tree: 
 
1. All leaves are at the same level.
2. A B-Tree is defined by the term minimum degree ‘t’. The value of t depends upon disk block
size.
3. Every node except root must contain at least t-1 keys. The root may contain minimum 1 key.
4. All nodes (including root) may contain at most 2*t – 1 keys.
5. Number of children of a node is equal to the number of keys in it plus 1.
6. All keys of a node are sorted in increasing order. The child between two keys k1 and k2
contains all keys in the range from k1 and k2.
7. B-Tree grows and shrinks from the root which is unlike Binary Search Tree. Binary Search
Trees grow downward and also shrink from downward.
8. Like other balanced Binary Search Trees, time complexity to search, insert and delete is O(log
n).
9. Insertion of a Node in B-Tree happens only at Leaf Node.
B-tree Example:

Difference between Sequential, heap/Direct, Hash, ISAM, B+ Tree, Cluster file organization
in database management system (DBMS) as shown below:

https://www.tutorialcup.com/dbms/file-organization.htm

## Fixed and Variable sized Records:

https://www.javatpoint.com/file-organization-storage

##Types of Single-Level Index (primary, secondary, clustering), Multilevel Indexes:

https://www.guru99.com/indexing-in-database.html