Index Basics

From InterBase

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An index is a mechanism that is used to speed the retrieval of records in response to certain search conditions, and to enforce uniqueness constraints on columns. Just as you search an index in a book for a list of page numbers to quickly find the pages that you want to read, a database index serves as a logical pointer to the physical location (address) of a row in a table. An index stores each value of the indexed column or columns along with pointers to all of the disk blocks that contain rows with that column value.

When executing a query, the InterBase engine first checks to see if any indexes exist for the named tables. It then determines whether it is more efficient to scan the entire table, or to use an existing index to process the query. If the engine decides to use an index, it searches the index to find the key values requested, and follows the pointers to locate the rows in the table containing the values.

Data retrieval is fast because the values in the index are ordered, and the index is relatively small. This allows the system to quickly locate the key value. Once the key value is found, the system follows the pointer to the physical location of the associated data. Using an index typically requires fewer page fetches than a sequential read of every row in the table.

An index can be defined on a single column or on multiple columns of a table. The engine will use an index to look up a subset of columns, as long as that subset of columns forms a prefix of a multi-column index definition.

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