Computing (FOLDOC) dictionary
Jump to user comments
database, information science A sequence of (
key, pointer)
which contains the key value in some particular field. The
index is sorted on the key values to allow rapid searching for
is "inverted" in the sense that the key value is used to find
the record rather than the other way round. For databases in
which the records may be searched based on more than one
field, multiple indices may be created that are sorted on
those keys.
An index may contain gaps to allow for new entries to be added
in the correct sort order without always requiring the
following entries to be shifted out of the way.
(1995-02-08)