The K-D-B-tree

The problem of retrieving multikey records via range queries from a large, dynamic index is considered. By large it is meant that most of the index must be stored on secondary memory. By dynamic it is meant that insertions and deletions are intermixed with queries, so that the index cannot be built beforehand. A new data structure, the K-D-B-tree, is presented as a solution to this problem. K-D-B-trees combine properties of K-D-trees and B-trees. It is expected that the multidimensional search effieciency of balanced K-D-trees and the I/O efficiency of B-trees should both be approximated in the K-D-B-tree. Preliminary experimental results that tend to support this are reported.