What are the differences between various indexing methods?

What are the differences between various indexing methods?

There are several indexing methods, including B-trees, hash indexing, and bitmap indexing. B-trees are great for range queries, while hash indexing is efficient for equality searches. Bitmap indexing is useful for columns with a limited number of distinct values.

Can you explain how B-trees work?

B-trees are balanced tree data structures that maintain sorted data and allow searches, sequential access, insertions, and deletions in logarithmic time. They are commonly used in databases and file systems.

What are the advantages of using hash indexing?

Hash indexing provides fast data retrieval for equality comparisons, as it uses a hash function to compute the address of the data. However, it is not suitable for range queries.

When should I use bitmap indexing?

Bitmap indexing is ideal for columns with low cardinality, meaning a small number of distinct values. It's efficient for complex queries involving multiple conditions.