INFS2200/INFS7903 Relational Database Systems Week 5: Database Indexing

These flashcards cover key vocabulary related to database indexing concepts discussed in the lecture for the course INFS2200/INFS7903.

Database Index

A mapping mechanism used by a DBMS to associate search key values with the locations of indexed records on hard disks.

Primary Index

A sparse index defined on an ordered data file, having one entry for each block in the data file.

Secondary Index

A dense index defined on an unordered data file that includes one entry for each record.

Clustering Index

A sparse index that includes one entry for each distinct value of a field in an ordered data file.

B+-Tree

A type of tree structure index where data pointers are stored only at the leaf nodes, commonly used in databases.

Bitmap Index

An index type composed of bit vectors, suitable for low cardinality attributes.

Hash Index

An indexing method that uses hashing functions to efficiently locate data based on equality queries.

Linear Search

An expensive method of searching through records one by one.

Multi-Level Index

An index consisting of a primary index and additional indexes that access the primary index, arranged in levels.

Sparse Index

An index that contains entries for only some search values, typically for ordered files.

Dense Index

An index that contains an entry for every search key value in a data file.

Database Administrator (DBA)

A professional responsible for creating and maintaining database indexes and ensuring database performance.

Index Maintenance

The automatic updating of indexes by the DBMS whenever the database records change.

Indexing Strategy

The approach to determining which attributes should be indexed based on query usage and data characteristics.

Index File Structure

An auxiliary file structured to expedite searching for records in the data file, usually consisting of pairs of field values and pointers.