Efficient C++ Performance Programming Techniques

Disk and Memory Structures

File structures are a topic for entire books all by themselves, and it is beyond the scope of this one to go into them in any significant detail. We will, however, discuss some of the more significant reasons why it is important to understand file structures and use appropriate ones when data persistence requires file storage, or when dynamic data size requires extensive use of virtual storage.

B+ trees and b* trees are the canonical file structures associated with the storage of volatile ordered class instances. Simple linear files or indexed files are viable structures for data that has sequential access characteristics or that is infrequently modified. These file structures are often considered more appropriate to ...