INDEXING

Indexing mechanisms used to speed up access to desired data.

o E.g., author catalog in library Search-key Pointer

Search Key - attribute to set of attributes used to look up records in a file.

An index file consists of records (called index entries) of the form. Index files
are typically much smaller than the original file.

Two basic kinds of indices:

o Ordered indices: search keys are stored in sorted order.

o Hash indices: search keys are distributed uniformly across ―buckets‖ using a
―hash function‖. Index Evaluation Metrics
o Access types supported efficiently. E.g.,

o records with a specified value in the attribute

o or records with an attribute value falling in a specified range of values. o Access

time o Insertion time

o Deletion time o Space overhead

Ordered Indices
o Indexing techniques evaluated on basis of:

In an ordered index, index entries are stored, sorted on the search key value.
E.g., author catalogin library.

Primary index: in a sequentially ordered file, the index whose search key
specifies the sequentialorder of the file.

Also called clustering index

The search key of a primary index is usually but not necessarily the primary key.

Secondary index: an index whose search key specifies an order different from
the sequential order of the file. Also called non-clustering index.

Index-sequential file: ordered sequential file with

a primary index.
Dense Index File s
o Dense index — Index record appears for every search key value in the file.

Sparse Index Files

Sparse Index: contains index records for only some search-key values.
Applicable when records are sequentially ordered on search-key
To locate a record with search-key value K we:
Find index record with largest search-key value < K

Search file sequentially starting at the record to which the index record points.
Less space and less maintenance overhead for insertions and deletions.
Generally slower than dense index for locating records.

Good tradeoff: sparse index with an index entry for every block in file,
corresponding to least search-key value in the block.

Example of Sparse Index Files

Multilevel Index

If primary index does not fit in memory, access becomes expensive . To reducen
umber of disk accesses to index records, treat primary index kept on disk as a
sequential file and construct a sparse index

on it. o outer index – a sparse index of primary index o inner index – the primary
index file

If even the outer index is too large to fit in main memory, yet another level of
index can be created, and so on.

Indices at alllevels must be updated on insertion or deletion from the file.

Index Update: Deletion

If deleted record was the only record in the file with its particular search-key
value, the searchkey

is deleted from the index also. Single-level index deletion:

o Dense indices – deletion of search-key is similar to file record deletion.

o Sparse indices – if an entry for the search key exists in the index, it is deleted by
replacing the entry in the index with the next search-key value in the file (in
search-key order). If the next search-key value already has an index entry, the entry
is deleted instead of being replaced.

Index Update: Insertion o Single-level index insertion:

o Perform a lookup using the search-key value appearing in the record to be

inserted.

o Dense indices – if the search-key value does not appear in the index, insert it.

o Sparse indices – if index stores an entry for each block of the file, no change
needs to be made to

the index unless a new block is created. In this case, the first search-key value
appearing in the new block is inserted into the index.

o Multilevel insertion (as well as deletion) algorithms are simple extensions of the
single-level algorithms.

Secondary Indices
o Frequently, one wants to find all the records whose

values in a certain field (which is not the search-key of the primary index satisfy
some condition. o Example 1: In the account database stored sequentially by
account number, we may want to find all accounts in a particular branch.

o Example 2: as above, but where we want to find all accounts with a specified
balance or range of balances

o We can have a secondary index with an index record for each search-key value;
index record points to a bucket that contains pointers to all the actual records with
that particular search-key value.

Secondary Index on balance field of account

Primary and Secondary Indice s Secondary indices have to be dense.

Indices offer substantial benefits when searching for records.

When a file is modified, every index on the file must be updated, Updating
indices imposes overhead on database modification.

Sequential scan using primary index is efficient, but a sequential scan using a
secondary index is expensive.

each record access may fetch a new block from disk Bitmap Indices

n Bitmap indices are a special type of index designed for efficient querying on
multiple keys. n Records in a relation are assumed to be numbered sequentially
from, say,0

Given a number n it must be easy to retrieve record n

Particularly easy if records are of fixed size

n Applicable on attributes that take on a relatively small number of distinct values
E.g. gender, country, state, …

E.g. income-level (income broken up into a small number of levels such as 0-

9999, 10000-19999, 20000-50000, 50000- infinity)

n A bitmap is simply an array of bits.

n In its simplest form a bitmap index on an attribute has a bitmap for each value of
the attribute.
Bitmap has as many bits as records.

In a bitmap for value v, the bit for a record is 1 if the record has the value v for
the attribute, and is 0 otherwise.
Bitmap indices are useful for queries on multiple attributes

Not particularly useful for single attribute queries n Queries are answered using
bitmap operations

Intersection (and) Union (or)

Complementation (not)
 Each operation takes two bitmaps of the same size and applies the operation on
corresponding bits to get the result bitmap

Males with income level L1: 10010 AND 10100 = 10000

If number of distinct attribute values is 8, bitmap is only 1% of relation

size n Deletion needs to be handled properly

Existence bitmap to note if there is a valid record at a record location Needed for
complementation
Should keep bitmaps for all values, even null value.
B+-Tree Index Files

o B+-tree indices are an alternative to indexed-sequential files.

o Disadvantage of indexed-sequential files: performance degrades as file grows,

since many overflow blocks get created. Periodic reorganization of entire file is
required.

o Advantage of B+-tree index files: automatically reorganizes itself with small,

local, changes, in the face of insertions and deletions. Reorganization of entire file
is not required to maintain performance. o Disadvantage of B+-trees: extra
insertion and deletion overhead, space overhead.

o Advantages of B+-trees outweigh disadvantages, and they are used extensively.

A B+-tree is a rooted tree satisfying the following properties:

All paths from root to leaf are of the same length

Each node that is not a root or a leaf has between [n/2] and n children. A leaf
node has between [(n–1)/2] and n–1 values
Special cases:
If the root is not a leaf, it has at least 2 children.

If the root is a leaf (that is, there are no other nodes in the tree), it can have
between 0 and (n–1) values.

Typical node
o Ki are the search-key values

o Pi are pointers to children (for non-leaf nodes) or pointers to records or buckets

of records (for leaf nodes).

The search-keys in a node are ordered K1 < K2 < K3 < . . . < Kn–1.

Leaf Nodes in B+-Trees

o Properties of a leaf node:

For i = 1, 2, . . ., n–1, pointer Pi either points to a filerecord with search-key

value Ki, or to a bucket ofpointers to file records, each record having search-
keyvalue Ki. Only need bucket structure if search-key doesnot form a primary key.
If Li, Lj are leaf nodes and i < j, Li‘s search-key values are less than Lj‘s search-
key values. Pn points to next leaf node in search-key order.

Non-Leaf Nodes in B+-Trees

Non leaf nodes form a multi-level sparse index on the leaf nodes. For a non-leaf
node with m pointers:

o Al l the search-keys in the subtree to which P1 points are less than K1.
o For 2 i n – 1, all the search-keys in the subtree to which Pi points have values
greater than or equal to Ki–1 and less than Km–1. Example of a B+-tree

B+-tree for account file (n = 3) B+-tree for account file (n - 5)

o Leaf nodes must have between 2 and 4 v alues ( (n–1)/2 and n –1, with n = 5).

o Non-leaf nodes other than root must have between 3 and 5 children ( (n/2
and n with n =5). o Root must have at least 2 children.

Observations about B+-trees

o Since the inter-node connections are done by pointers, ―logically‖ close blocks
need not be ―physically‖ close.

o Th e non-leaf levels of the B+-tree form a hierarchy of sparse indices.

o The B+-tree contains a relatively small number of levels (logarithmic in the size
of the main file), thus searches can be conducted efficiently.

o Insertions and deletions to the main file can be handled efficiently, as the index
can be restructured in logarithmic time.

Queries on B+-Trees
Find all records with a search-key value of k. o Start with the root node
Examine the node for the smallest search-key value > k.
If such a value exists, assume it is Kj. Then follow Pi to the child node.
 Otherwise k Km–1, where there are m pointers in the node. Then follow Pm to
the child node. o If the node reached by following the pointer above is not a leaf
node, repeat the above procedure on the node, and follow the corresponding
pointer.

o Eventually reach a leaf node. If for some i, key Ki = k follow pointer Pi to the
desired record or bucket. Else no record with search-key value k exists.

Result of splitting node containing Brighton and Downtown on

inserting NOTES Clearview

B+-Tree before and after insertion of ―Clearview‖ Updates on B+-Trees: Deletion

Find the record to be deleted, and remove it from the main file and from the
bucket (if present).

Remove (search-key value, pointer) from the leaf node if there is no bucket or if
the bucket has

become empty.

If the node has too few entries due to the removal, and the entries in the node
and a sibling fit into a single node, then

Insert all the search-key values in the two nodes into a single node (the one on
the left), and delete the other node.

Delete the pair (Ki–1, Pi), where Pi is the pointer to the deleted node, from its
parent, recursively using the above procedure.
 Otherwise, if the node has too few entries due to the removal, and the entries in
the node and a sibling fit into a single node, then

Redistribute the pointers between the node and a sibling such that both have more
than the minimum number of entries.

Update the corresponding search-key value in the parent of the node.

The node deletions may cascade upwards till a node whichh as n/2 or more
pointers is found. If the root node has only one

pointer after deletion, it is deleted and the sole child becomes the root.

Examples of B+-Tree Deletion Before and after deleting ―Downtown‖

o The removal of the leaf node containing ―Downtown‖ did not result in its parent
having too little

pointers. So the cascaded deletions stopped with the deleted leaf node‘s parent.

B+-Tree File Organization

o Index file degradation problem is solved by using B+-Tree indices. Data file
degradation problem is solved by using B+-Tree File Organization.

o The leaf nodes in a B+-tree file organization store records, instead of pointers.
o Since records are larger than pointers, the maximum number of records that can
be stored in a leaf node is less than the number of pointers in a nonleaf node.

Leaf nodes are still required to be half full.

Insertion and deletion are handled in the same way as insertion and deletion of
entries in a B+-tree index

Example of B+-tree File Organization

o Good space utilization is important since records use more space than pointers.

o To improve space utilization, involve more sibling nodes in redistribution during

splits and merges.

Involving 2 siblings in redistribution (to avoid split / merge where possible)

results in each node having at least entries