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Chapter 16

Disk Storage,
Basic File Structures, and
Hashing
Part2

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File Organization
 The database is stored as a collection of files.

 Each file is a sequence of records.

 A record is a sequence of fields.

 Records are stored on disk blocks.

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 File, Fixed Length Records, and 

Variable Length Records

 A file can have fixed-length records or variable-
length records.
1- Fixed length records:

 The starting position and size of each field are

known and fixed.
 Each record is of fixed length. Pad with spaces.
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File, Fixed Length Records, and 

Variable Length Records

2- Variable length records
 different records in the file have different sizes.

 saves space.
  the starting position and size of each field is
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Blocking Factor
 Blocking Factor (bfr) - the number of records that can
fit into a single block.
 Bfr ( no of records in the block) = ⌊B/R⌋
 B : Block size in bytes
 R: Record size in bytes
 Example:
 Record size R = 225 bytes,
 Block Size B = 2,000 bytes,
 File size= 100000 record,

 How many records fit into the block?

bfr (no of records in the block) = 2000/255 = 7.8 = 7Record

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Example.cont
 How many blocks are required to store the entire
file?
 The number of blocks b needed to store a file of r
records:
 B (no of blocks required to store a file) = r/bfr blocks
= 100000/7= 14285.7 = 14286= blocks

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Placing File Records on Disk

Unspanned Records

Spanned Records
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 Types of records organization 
Spanned & Unspanned Records
 Unspanned records:
 A record is found in one and only one block.
 records do not span(not divided) across block
boundaries.
 Used with fixed-length records having B  R
 Spanned records:
 Records are been allowed to span across block
boundaries.
 Used with variable-length records having R  B
 A pointer at the end of the first block points to
the block containing the remainder of the
record, not the next consecutive block on disk.

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 Types of records organization 
Spanned & Unspanned Records

 In variable-length records, either spanned or unspanned

organization can be used.

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Allocating File Blocks on Disk
 The physical disk blocks that are allocated to hold the
records of a file can be contiguous, linked, or indexed.

 In contiguous allocation, the file blocks are allocated

to consecutive disk blocks.
 In linked allocation, each file block contains a pointer
to the next file block.
 In indexed allocation, one or more index blocks
contain pointers to the actual file blocks.

 A file header or file descriptor contains information

about a file (e.g., the disk address, record format
descriptions, etc.)

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Operation on Files
 Operation on files are :

 Retrieval operations: do not change any data in the file.

 Update operations : change the file by insertion or

deletion or modification of field values

In either case, it needs to find a record(s) based on a selection

certain criteria such as :

Select Name where Salary > 3000

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Operation on Files.cont
 Typical file operations ( access methods) include:

 OPEN: Prepares the file for reading or writing , sets the file pointer to
the beginning of the file.

 FIND: Searches for the first file record that satisfies a certain
condition, and makes it the current file record.

 READ: Reads the current file record into a program variable.

 FINDNEXT: Searches for the next file record (from the current
record) that satisfies a certain condition, and makes it the current file
record.

 INSERT: Inserts a new record into the file & makes it the current file
record.

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Operation on Files.cont

 DELETE: Removes the current file record from the file

 MODIFY: Changes the values of some fields of the current file

record.

 CLOSE: Terminates access to the file (release the buffers)

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Organization of Records in Files

 The general techniques for organizing records of

a file on disk :

1. Heap File Organization.

2. Sorted/Ordered File Organization.

3. Hashing File Organization.

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Files of unordered records (Heap File)
 Records are placed in the file in the order in which
they are inserted. Such an organization is called a
heap or pile file.
 It is a simplest and most basic types of organization
 Insertion : inserting a new record at the end of
file.
 (very efficient)
 Searching
 requires a linear search (expensive)
 Deleting
 requires a linear search, then delete.
 Leaves unused space in the disk block.

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Heap File Organization
 Either spanned or unspanned organization with
fixed length or variable length records can be used
for an unordered file (Heap file).

 For a file of unordered fixed-length records using

unspanned blocks and contiguous allocation, it is
straightforward to access any record by its position
in the file.

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Hashing Techniques

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