File organization & File access

File Organization

Serial file organization

The features of serial file orgnization:

1. Records enter file in chronogical order.
2. But otherwise, there are no particular order.
3. Records can only be accessed sequentially/in sequential order.
4. A typical use is for bank to record the transactions of a customer account.

Sequentail file organization

The features of sequential file orgnization:

1. The records are ordered in some way, usually sorted according to the values of the key field.
2. Records in a sequential file can only be accessed sequentially/in sequential order.
3. It is an improvement to serial file organization. It takes shorter time to search a record in a sequential file than in a serial file.

Sequential file organization with fixed-size records

The features of sequential file organization with fixed-size records:

1. It’s an improvment to sequential file organization. Each record in the file is of the same size.
2. Direct access is possible if an index file is provided. An index file stores the key values and positions of relevant records.

Direct-access (random access) file organization

1. The term random access is a lit bit misleading. The alternative direct-access suggests that record can be accessed directedly.
2. Usually a hash algorithm is ued to get the postion of a record from its key value. The hash algorithm is implemented as a hash function generally. The function takes in the key value and generats an integer as the postion of the record with the key value. when searching a record in the file, the hash function is used to locate the postion of the record.
3. A direct-access file can be access sequentially. The essence of direct-access file organization is to provide the ability to access records directly. Searching a record in a direct-access file is much faster than in a serial or sequentail file.

Methods of file access

	Sequential access	Direct access
Serial Organization	√	×
Sequential Organization	√	×
Sequential Organization with index file	√	√
Direct access organization	√	√