CSC3170 Assignment3

Correspondence: Yuyang Liang

November 2024

1 Introduction
• This is the third homework for CSC3170. It weighs 10% of your final
grade.

• The deadline for this homework is December 7th 11:59 pm.

• This assignment includes two parts, a writing part, and a coding part,
each part weighs 50%.
• Directly using AI-generated answers or other students answers will be
considered as cheating.

2 Writing Part (50%)

2.1 Merge Algorithm (24%)
We have a database file with twelve million pages (N = 12,000,000 pages), and
we want to sort it using external merge sort. Assume that the DBMS is not
using double buffering or blocked I/O, and that it uses quicksort for in-memory
sorting. Let B denote the number of buffers pages.
(a) Assume that the DBMS has 60 buffers. How many passes does the DBMS
need to perform in order to sort the file? (4%)

(b) Assume that the DBMS has 60 buffers. How many sorted runs are gen-
erated during the whole process? Note that the final sorted file does not
count towards the sorted run count. (4%)
(c) Again, assuming that the DBMS has 60 buffers. How many pages (in
general) does each sorted run have after the third pass (i.e., Pass #2 if
you start counting from Pass #0)? (4%)
(d) Suppose the DBMS has 120 buffers. What is the total I/O cost to sort
the file? (4%)

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 (e) What is the smallest number of buffers B such that the DBMS can sort
the target file using only three passes? (4%)
(f ) Suppose the DBMS has 25 buffers. What is the largest database file (ex-
pressed in terms of the number of pages) that can be sorted with external
merge sort using four passes? (4%)

2.2 Join Algorithm (26%)

Consider relations A(x, z), B(x, y, w), and C(y, v, u) to be joined on the common
attribute x. Assume that there are no indexes available on the tables to speed
up the join algorithms.
• The buffer has F = 500 pages.
• Table A spans M = 3,000 pages with 50 tuples per page.
• Table B spans N = 800 pages with 200 tuples per page.

• Table C spans O = 2,000 pages with 100 tuples per page.

• The join result of A and B spans P = 600 pages.
For the following questions, assume a simple cost model where pages are
read and written one at a time. Also assume that one buffer block is needed for
the evolving output block and one input block is needed for the current input
block of the inner relation. You may ignore the cost of writing the final results.
(a) What is the I/O cost of a simple nested loop join with A as the outer
relation and B as the inner relation? (4%)

(b) What is the I/O cost of a block nested loop join with C as the outer
relation and B as the inner relation? (4%)
(c) For a sort-merge join with B as the outer relation and C as the inner
relation: What is the cost of sorting the tuples in B on attribute y? And
what is the cost of the merge phase in the worst-case scenario? (Assume
external merge sort is applied and no clustered index is used.)(6%)

(d) Consider joining A,B and then joining the result with C using the sort-
merge join algorithm. What is the cost of the final merge phase assuming
there are no duplicates in the join attribute? (4%)
(e) Consider a hash join with B as the outer relation and C as the inner
relation. Assume no recursive partitioning is needed, and the pages in
each partition are exactly filled with tuples (i.e., no partially filled pages.)
What are the costs of the partition phase and the probe phase? (8%)

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3 Coding Part (50%)
3.1 Task Description
Your task is to implement a B+ Tree data structure in your preferred program-
ming language. The B+ Tree should support the following core functionalities:
(a) Insertion: Adds a new element into the B+ tree and maintains the tree
property.
(b) Search: Searches for an element in the B+ tree.
(c) Deletion: Removes an element from the B+ tree if it exists.
(d) Display: display all elements stored in the B+ tree in ascending order.
We recommend using an object-oriented programming (OOP) approach. You
may design and implement a dedicated class for tree nodes and use appropri-
ate data structures to preserve the properties of a B+ Tree. Ensure that the
insertion, deletion, and search operations have a time complexity of O(log n).
Here is an example of expected code usage in Python (you are allowed to
use other programming languages like C/C++/Java). You are free to have your
own design as long as it correctly realizes the B+ tree structure:
# Create a B + Tree with a s p e c i f i e d degree ( e . g . , degree = 4 )
tree = BPlusTree ( degree = 4 )

# Insertion
# Input : a value to insert
# Output : A c o n f i r m a t i o n ( e . g . , True or a status message )
# i n d i c a t i n g that the value has been s u c c e s s f u l l y i n s e r t e d
tree . insert ( 10 )
tree . insert ( 20 )
tree . insert ( 5 )
tree . insert ( 15 )

# Search
# Input : a value to search
# Output : True if the value exists , o t h e r w i s e False .
result = tree . search ( 15 ) # True

# Deletion
# Input : a value to delete
# Output : A c o n f i r m a t i o n ( e . g . , True or a status message )
# i n d i c a t i n g that the value has been s u c c e s s f u l l y deleted ,
# or an error message if the value was not found .
tree . delete ( 10 )

# Display the values in the tree

# Input : None
# Output : all values in a s c e n d i n g order
tree . display () # Output : 5 , 15 , 20

Assume that all data is of type int by default. You only need to implement
the basic functions of the B+ tree, no optimization techniques are required.

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3.2 Grading Criteria
• Code Correctness (25%):
– The implementation should correctly perform the required opera-
tions: insertion, search, deletion, and display.
– The B+ Tree should maintain its structural properties after each
operation.
• Code Readability and Comments (5%):
– Code should be well-structured and follow clean coding practices.
– Proper and meaningful comments should be included to explain the
logic and functionality of the code.
• Report(20%): You should also submit a brief report (recommended
within 3 pages, up to 6 pages) that includes, at a minimum, the following
sections:

– Introduction: summarize what you have done for this coding assign-
ment.
– Design & Implementation: detail the design choices, challenges faced,
and solutions implemented.
– Code Usage: explain how to run your code, and include examples of
the output of functions.
You will lose all points if you only submit the report without your source
code. Please be concise and say something that matters.

4 Submission Requirements
You should submit three files via the Blackboard system:
• An answer sheet for the writing part.
• The source code of the coding part (as a single zip file if it consists of
multiple files).
• A brief report of the coding part.