Tree-Structured Indexes

Content based on Chapter 10

Database Management Systems, (3rd
Edition),
by Raghu Ramakrishnan and Johannes
Gehrke. McGraw Hill, 2003

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

 Introduction
 As for any index, 3 alternatives for data
entries k*:
 Data record with key value k
 <k, rid of data record with search key value k>
 <k, list of rids of data records with search key k>
 Choice is orthogonal to the indexing
technique used to locate data entries k*.
 Tree-structured indexing techniques support
both range searches and equality searches.
 ISAM: static structure; B+ tree: dynamic,
adjusts gracefully under inserts and deletes.
atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke
 Range Searches
 ``Find all students with gpa > 3.0’’
 If data is in sorted file, do binary search to
find first such student, then scan to find
others.
 Cost of binary search can be quite high.
 Simple idea: Create an `index’ file.
k1 k2 kN Index File

Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page N Data File

 Can do binary search on (smaller) index file!

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke
 B+ Tree: Most Widely Used
Index
 Insert/delete at log F N cost; keep tree height-
balanced. (F = fanout, N = # leaf pages)
 Minimum 50% occupancy (except for root). Each
node contains d <= m <= 2d entries. The
parameter d is called the order of the tree.
 Supports equality and range-searches efficiently.

Index Entries
(Direct search)

Data Entries
("Sequence set")
atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke
 Example B+ Tree

 Search begins at root, and key

comparisons direct it to a leaf.
 Search for 5*, 15*, all data entries >=
24* ... Root

13 17 24 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 14* 16* 19* 20* 22* 24* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*

 Based on the search for 15*, we know it is not in the tree!

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke
 B+ Trees in Practice

 Typical order: 100. Typical fill-factor: 67%.

 average fanout = 133
 Typical capacities:
 Height 4: 1334 = 312,900,700 records
 Height 3: 1333 = 2,352,637 records
 Can often hold top levels in buffer pool:
 Level 1 = 1 page = 8 Kbytes
 Level 2 = 133 pages = 1 Mbyte
 Level 3 = 17,689 pages = 133 MBytes

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

 Inserting a Data Entry into a
B+ Tree
 Find correct leaf L.
 Put data entry onto L.
 If L has enough space, done!
 Else, must split L (into L and a new node L2)
• Redistribute entries evenly, copy up middle key.
• Insert index entry pointing to L2 into parent of L.
 This can happen recursively
 To split index node, redistribute entries evenly, but
push up middle key. (Contrast with leaf splits.)
 Splits “grow” tree; root split increases height.
 Tree growth: gets wider or one level taller at top.

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

 Example B+ Tree - Inserting
15*
Root

13 17 24 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 14* 16* 19* 20* 22* 24* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*

14* 15* 16*

Dose not violates the

50% rule

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

 Example B+ Tree - Inserting
8*
Root

13 17 24 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 14* 16* 19* 20* 22* 24* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*

2* 3* 5* 7* 8*

Violate the 50%

rule, split the leaf.

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

 Example B+ Tree - Inserting
8*
Violate the 50%
rule, split the
Root internal node.

5 13 17 24 30

2* 3* 14* 16* 19* 20* 22* 24* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*

5* 7* 8*

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 1

 Example B+ Tree After
Inserting 8*
Root
17

5 13 24 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 8* 14* 16* 19* 20* 22* 24* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*

 Notice that root was split, leading to increase in height.

 In this example, we can avoid split by re-
distributing entries; however, this is
usually not done in practice.
atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 1
 Inserting 8* into Example B+
Tree
Entry to be inserted in parent node.
 Observe how 5 (Note that 5 is
s copied up and
minimum continues to appear in the leaf.)

occupancy is
guaranteed in 2* 3* 5* 7* 8*
both leaf and
index pg splits.
 Note difference
between copy- Entry to be inserted in parent node.
(Note that 17 is pushed up and only
up and push- 17
appears once in the index. Contrast
this with a leaf split.)
up; be sure you
understand the
5 13 24 30
reasons for this.

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 1

 Deleting a Data Entry from a
B+ Tree
 Start at root, find leaf L where entry belongs.
 Remove the entry.
 If L is at least half-full, done!
 If L has only d-1 entries,
• Try to re-distribute, borrowing from sibling (adjacent
node with same parent as L).
• If re-distribution fails, merge L and sibling.
 If merge occurred, must delete entry (pointing to L
or sibling) from parent of L.
 Merge could propagate to root, decreasing height.

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 1

 Example Tree (including 8*)
Delete 19* and 20* ...

Root
17

5 13 24 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 8* 14* 16* 19* 20* 22* 24* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 1

 Example Tree (including 8*)
After 19* is Deleted. Delete
20
Root
17

5 13 24 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 8* 14* 16* 20* 22* 24* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*

 Deleting 19* is easy.

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 1

 Example Tree (including 8*)
Delete 20*

Root
17

5 13 24 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 8* 14* 16* 22* 24* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*

 Underflow! → Redistribute. Violet the 50%

rule

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 1

 Example Tree After (Inserting
8*, Then) Deleting 19* and
20* ...
Root

17

5 13 27 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 8* 14* 16* 22* 24* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*

 Deleting 20* is done with re-distribution.

Notice how the lowest key is copied up.

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 1

 ... And Then Deleting 24*

Root

17

5 13 27 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 8* 14* 16* 22* 24* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*

 Underflow!
 Can we do redistribution?
 MERGE!

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 1

 ... And Then Deleting
24*
 Must merge. 30
 Observe `toss’ of
index entry (on
22* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*
right), and `pull
down’ of index
entry (below).
Root
5 13 17 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 8* 14* 16* 22* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 1

 Example of Non-leaf Re-
distribution
 Tree is shown below during deletion of 24*.
 In contrast to previous example, can re-
distribute entry from left child of root to
right child.
Root

22

5 13 17 20 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 8* 14* 16* 17* 18* 20* 21* 22* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 2

 After Re-distribution
 Intuitively, entries are re-distributed by
`pushing through’ the splitting entry in the
parent node.
 It suffices to re-distribute index entry with
key 20. Root

20

5 13 17 22 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 8* 14* 16* 17* 18* 20* 21* 22* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*
atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 2
 After Re-distribution
 Intuitively, entries are re-distributed by
`pushing through’ the splitting entry in the
parent node.
 We’ve re-distributed 17 as well for
illustration. Root

17

5 13 20 22 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 8* 14* 16* 17* 18* 20* 21* 22* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*
atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 2
 Prefix Key Compression
 Important to increase fan-out. (Why?)
 Key values in index entries only `direct traffic’; can
often compress them.
 E.g., If we have adjacent index entries with search key
values Dannon Yogurt, David Smith and Devarakonda
Murthy, we can abbreviate David Smith to Dav. (The
other keys can be compressed too ...)
• Is this correct? Not quite! What if there is a data entry Davey
Jones? (Can only compress David Smith to Davi)
• In general, while compressing, must leave each index entry
greater than every key value (in any subtree) to its left.
 Insert/delete must be suitably modified.

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 2

 Bulk Loading of a B+ Tree
 If we have a large collection of records,
and we want to create a B+ tree on some
field, doing so by repeatedly inserting
records is very slow.
 Bulk Loading can be done much more
efficiently.
 Initialization: Sort all data entries, insert
Root
Sorted pages of data entries; not yet in B+ tree
pointer to first (leaf) page in a new (root)
page.
3* 4* 6* 9* 10* 11* 12* 13* 20* 22* 23* 31* 35* 36* 38* 41* 44*

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 2

 Bulk Loading of a B+ Tree
Root
6 Sorted pages of data entries; not yet in B+ tree

3* 4* 6* 9* 10* 11* 12* 13* 20* 22* 23* 31* 35* 36* 38* 41* 44*

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 2

 Bulk Loading of a B+ Tree
Root
6 10 Sorted pages of data entries; not yet in B+ tree

3* 4* 6* 9* 10* 11* 12* 13* 20* 22* 23* 31* 35* 36* 38* 41* 44*

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 2

 Bulk Loading (Contd.)
Root 10 20

 Index entries for

leaf pages always 6 12 23 35
Data entry pages
not yet in B+ tree
entered into right-
most index page
just above leaf 3* 4* 6* 9* 10* 11* 12* 13* 20*22* 23* 31* 35* 36* 38*41* 44*
level. When this
fills up, it splits.
(Split may go up Root 20
right-most path to
the root.) 10 35 Data entry pages
not yet in B+ tree
 Much faster than
repeated inserts, 6 12 23 38
especially when one
considers locking!
3* 4* 6* 9* 10* 11* 12* 13* 20*22* 23* 31* 35* 36* 38*41* 44*
atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 2
 Summary of Bulk Loading

 Option 1: multiple inserts.

 Slow.
 Does not give sequential storage of leaves.
 Option 2: Bulk Loading
 Has advantages for concurrency control.
 Fewer I/Os during build.
 Leaves will be stored sequentially (and
linked, of course).
 Can control “fill factor” on pages.

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 2

 Summary
 Tree-structured indexes are ideal for range-
searches, also good for equality searches.
 B+ tree is a dynamic structure.
 Inserts/deletes leave tree height-balanced; log F
N cost.
 High fanout (F) means depth rarely more than 3
or 4.
 Almost always better than maintaining a sorted
file.

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 2

 Summary (Contd.)
 Typically, 67% occupancy on average.
 If data entries are data records, splits can change rids!
 Key compression increases fanout, reduces height.
 Bulk loading can be much faster than repeated
inserts for creating a B+ tree on a large data set.
 Most widely used index in database management
systems because of its versatility. One of the most
optimized components of a DBMS.

atabase Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 3