Indexing and Hashing
Module 5
• Basic Concepts
• Ordered Indices
• Static Hashing
• Dynamic Hashing
• Comparison of Ordered Indexing and Hashing
• Index Definition in SQL
Basic Concepts
• Indexing mechanisms used to speed up access to
desired data.
– E.g., author catalog in library
• Search Key - attribute to set of attributes used to look
up records in a file.
• An index file consists of records (called index entries)
of the form
search-key pointer
• Index files are typically much smaller than the original
file
• Two basic kinds of indices:
– Ordered indices: search keys are stored in sorted order
– Hash indices: search keys are distributed uniformly across
“buckets” using a “hash function”.
Index Evaluation Metrics
• Access types supported efficiently. E.g.,
– records with a specified value in the attribute
– or records with an attribute value falling in a
specified range of values.
• Access time
• Insertion time
• Deletion time
• Space overhead
Ordered Indices
• In an ordered index, index entries are stored sorted on
the search key value. E.g., author catalog in library.
• Primary index: in a sequentially ordered file, the index
whose search key specifies the sequential order of the
file.
– Also called clustering index
– The search key of a primary index is usually but not
necessarily the primary key.
• Secondary index: an index whose search key specifies an
order different from the sequential order of the file.
Also called
non-clustering index.
• Index-sequential file: ordered sequential file with a
primary index.
Dense Index Files
• Dense index — Index record appears for every search-key value in
the file.
• E.g. index on ID attribute of instructor relation
Dense Index Files (Cont.)
• Dense index on dept_name, with instructor file sorted on dept_name
Sparse Index Files
• Sparse Index: contains index records for only some search-
key values.
– Applicable when records are sequentially ordered on search-
key
• To locate a record with search-key value K we:
– Find index record with largest search-key value < K
– Search file sequentially starting at the record to which the
index record points
Sparse Index Files (Cont.)
• Compared to dense indices:
– Less space and less maintenance overhead for insertions and
deletions.
– Generally slower than dense index for locating records.
• Good tradeoff: sparse index with an index entry for every
block in file, corresponding to least search-key value in the
block.
Secondary Indices Example
Secondary index on salary field of instructor
• Index record points to a bucket that contains pointers to all the
actual records with that particular search-key value.
• Secondary indices have to be dense
Primary and Secondary Indices
• Indices offer substantial benefits when searching for records.
• BUT: Updating indices imposes overhead on database modification --when
a file is modified, every index on the file must be updated,
• Sequential scan using primary index is efficient, but a sequential scan
using a secondary index is expensive
– Each record access may fetch a new block from disk
– Block fetch requires about 5 to 10 milliseconds, versus about 100
nanoseconds for memory access
Index Update: Deletion
If deleted record was the
only record in the file with its
particular search-key value,
the search-key is deleted
from the index also.
• Single-level index entry deletion:
– Dense indices – deletion of search-key is similar to file record
deletion.
– Sparse indices –
• if an entry for the search key exists in the index, it is deleted by
replacing the entry in the index with the next search-key value
in the file (in search-key order).
• If the next search-key value already has an index entry, the entry
is deleted instead of being replaced.
Index Update: Insertion
• Single-level index insertion:
– Perform a lookup using the search-key value appearing in the
record to be inserted.
– Dense indices – if the search-key value does not appear in the
index, insert it.
– Sparse indices – if index stores an entry for each block of the file,
no change needs to be made to the index unless a new block is
created.
• If a new block is created, the first search-key value appearing
in the new block is inserted into the index.
• Multilevel insertion and deletion: algorithms are simple extensions
of the single-level algorithms
Secondary Indices
• Frequently, one wants to find all the records whose values in a
certain field (which is not the search-key of the primary index)
satisfy some condition.
– Example 1: In the instructor relation stored sequentially by ID,
we may want to find all instructors in a particular department
– Example 2: as above, but where we want to find all instructors
with a specified salary or with salary in a specified range of
values
• We can have a secondary index with an index record for each
search-key value
Static Hashing
• A bucket is a unit of storage containing one or more records
(a bucket is typically a disk block).
• In a hash file organization we obtain the bucket of a record
directly from its search-key value using a hash function.
• Hash function h is a function from the set of all search-key
values K to the set of all bucket addresses B.
• Hash function is used to locate records for access, insertion
as well as deletion.
• Records with different search-key values may be mapped to
the same bucket; thus entire bucket has to be searched
sequentially to locate a record.
Example of Hash File Organization
Hash file organization of instructor file, using dept_name as key
(See figure in next slide.)
• There are 10 buckets,
• The binary representation of the ith
character is assumed to be the integer i.
• The hash function returns the sum of the
binary representations of the characters
modulo 10
– E.g. h(Music) = 1 h(History) = 2
h(Physics) = 3 h(Elec. Eng.) = 3
Example of Hash File Organization
Hash file organization of instructor file, using dept_name as key
(see previous slide for details).
Hash Functions
• Worst hash function maps all search-key values to the
same bucket; this makes access time proportional to the
number of search-key values in the file.
• An ideal hash function is uniform, i.e., each bucket is
assigned the same number of search-key values from
the set of all possible values.
• Ideal hash function is random, so each bucket will have
the same number of records assigned to it irrespective
of the actual distribution of search-key values in the file.
• Typical hash functions perform computation on the
internal binary representation of the search-key.
– For example, for a string search-key, the binary
representations of all the characters in the string could be
added and the sum modulo the number of buckets could be
returned. .
Handling of Bucket Overflows
• Bucket overflow can occur because of
– Insufficient buckets
– Skew in distribution of records. This can occur
due to two reasons:
• multiple records have same search-key value
• chosen hash function produces non-uniform
distribution of key values
• Although the probability of bucket
overflow can be reduced, it cannot be
eliminated; it is handled by using overflow
buckets.
Handling of Bucket Overflows (Cont.)
• Overflow chaining – the overflow buckets of a given bucket are
chained together in a linked list.
• Above scheme is called closed hashing.
– An alternative, called open hashing, which does not use overflow buckets,
is not suitable for database applications.
Hash Indices
• Hashing can be used not only for file organization, but
also for index-structure creation.
• A hash index organizes the search keys, with their
associated record pointers, into a hash file structure.
• Strictly speaking, hash indices are always secondary
indices
– if the file itself is organized using hashing, a separate
primary hash index on it using the same search-key is
unnecessary.
– However, we use the term hash index to refer to both
secondary index structures and hash organized files.
Example of Hash Index
hash index on instructor, on attribute ID
Deficiencies of Static Hashing
• In static hashing, function h maps search-key values to a fixed
set of B of bucket addresses. Databases grow or shrink with
time.
– If initial number of buckets is too small, and file grows,
performance will degrade due to too much overflows.
– If space is allocated for anticipated growth, a significant amount of
space will be wasted initially (and buckets will be underfull).
– If database shrinks, again space will be wasted.
• One solution: periodic re-organization of the file with a new
hash function
– Expensive, disrupts normal operations
• Better solution: allow the number of buckets to be modified
dynamically.
Dynamic Hashing
• Good for database that grows and shrinks in size
• Allows the hash function to be modified
dynamically
• Extendable hashing – one form of dynamic hashing
– Hash function generates values over a large range —
typically b-bit integers, with b = 32.
– At any time use only a prefix of the hash function to
index into a table of bucket addresses.
– Let the length of the prefix be i bits, 0 i 32.
• Bucket address table size = 2i. Initially i = 0
• Value of i grows and shrinks as the size of the database grows
and shrinks.
– Multiple entries in the bucket address table may point
to a bucket
– Thus, actual number of buckets is < 2i
• The number of buckets also changes dynamically due to
coalescing and splitting of buckets.
Example
Branch-name h(branch-name)
Brighton 0010 1101 1111 1011 0010 1100 0011 0000
Downtown 1010 0011 1010 0000 1100 0110 1001 1111
Mianus 1100 0111 1110 1101 1011 1111 0011 1010
Perryridge 1111 0001 0010 0100 1001 0011 0110 1101
Redwood 0011 0101 1010 0110 1100 1001 1110 1011
Round hill 1101 1000 0011 1111 1001 1100 0000 0001
Initial Hash structure, Bucket size=2
EXAMPLE Contd.
Module 7 : Indexing an d Hashing
EXAMPLE Contd.
Module 7 : Indexing an d Hashing
Comparison of Ordered Indexing and Hashing
• Cost of periodic re-organization
• Relative frequency of insertions and deletions
• Is it desirable to optimize average access time at the expense of worst-
case access time?
• Expected type of queries:
– Hashing is generally better at retrieving records having a specified
value of the key.
– If range queries are common, ordered indices are to be preferred
• In practice:
– PostgreSQL supports hash indices, but discourages use due to poor
performance
– Oracle supports static hash organization, but not hash indices
– SQLServer supports only B+-trees