Chapter 10: Storage and File Structure

Database System Concepts, 6th Ed.

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
 File Organization, Record Organization
and Storage Access

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 10.2 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.
 One approach:
assume record size is fixed
each file has records of one particular type only
different files are used for different relations
This case is easiest to implement; will consider variable length
records later.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 10.3 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Fixed--Length Records
Fixed
 Simple approach:
 Store record i starting from byte n  (i – 1), where n is the size of
each record.
 Record access is simple but records may cross blocks
 Modification: do not allow records to cross block boundaries

 Deletion of record i:
alternatives:
 move records i + 1, . . ., n
to i, . . . , n – 1
 move record n to i
 do not move records, but
link all free records on a
free list

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 10.4 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Deleting record 3 and compacting

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 10.5 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Deleting record 3 and moving last record

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 10.6 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Free Lists
 Store the address of the first deleted record in the file header.
 Use this first record to store the address of the second deleted record,
and so on
 Can think of these stored addresses as pointers since they “point” to
the location of a record.
 More space efficient representation: reuse space for normal attributes
of free records to store pointers. (No pointers stored in in-use records.)

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 10.7 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Variable--Length Records
Variable

 Variable-length records arise in database systems in several ways:

 Storage of multiple record types in a file.
 Record types that allow variable lengths for one or more fields such as
strings (varchar)
 Record types that allow repeating fields (used in some older data
models).
 Attributes are stored in order
 Variable length attributes represented by fixed size (offset, length), with
actual data stored after all fixed length attributes
 Null values represented by null-value bitmap

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 10.8 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Variable--Length Records: Slotted Page Structure
Variable

 Slotted page header contains:

 number of record entries
 end of free space in the block
 location and size of each record
 Records can be moved around within a page to keep them contiguous
with no empty space between them; entry in the header must be
updated.
 Pointers should not point directly to record — instead they should
point to the entry for the record in header.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 10.9 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Organization of Records in Files

 Heap – a record can be placed anywhere in the file where there

is space
 Sequential – store records in sequential order, based on the
value of the search key of each record
 Hashing – a hash function computed on some attribute of each
record; the result specifies in which block of the file the record
should be placed
 Records of each relation may be stored in a separate file. In a
multitable clustering file organization records of several
different relations can be stored in the same file
 Motivation: store related records on the same block to
minimize I/O

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 10.10 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Sequential File Organization
 Suitable for applications that require sequential processing of
the entire file
 The records in the file are ordered by a search-key

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 10.11 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Sequential File Organization (Cont.)
 Deletion – use pointer chains
 Insertion –locate the position where the record is to be inserted
 if there is free space insert there
 if no free space, insert the record in an overflow block
 In either case, pointer chain must be updated
 Need to reorganize the file
from time to time to restore
sequential order

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 10.12 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Multitable Clustering File Organization
Store several relations in one file using a multitable clustering
file organization

department

instructor

multitable clustering
of department and
instructor

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 10.13 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Multitable Clustering File Organization (cont.)

 good for queries involving department instructor, and for queries

involving one single department and its instructors
 bad for queries involving only department
 results in variable size records
 Can add pointer chains to link records of a particular relation

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 10.14 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Data Dictionary Storage
The Data dictionary (also called system catalog) stores
metadata; that is, data about data, such as
 Information about relations
 names of relations
 names, types and lengths of attributes of each relation
 names and definitions of views
 integrity constraints
 User and accounting information, including passwords
 Statistical and descriptive data
 number of tuples in each relation
 Physical file organization information
 How relation is stored (sequential/hash/…)
 Physical location of relation
 Information about indices (Chapter 11)

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 10.15 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Relational Representation of System Metadata

 Relational
representation on
disk
 Specialized data
structures
designed for
efficient access, in
memory

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 10.16 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan