A B+ -tree index is to be built on the Name attribute of the relation STUDENT.…
2025
A B+ -tree index is to be built on the Name attribute of the relation STUDENT. Assume that all student names are of length 8 bytes, disk block are size 512 bytes, and index pointers are of size 4 bytes. Given this scenario, what would be the best choice of the degree (i.e. the number of pointers per node) of the B+ -tree ?
- A.
16
- B.
42
- C.
43
- D.
44
Attempted by 64 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
For B+ tree leaf nodes, the degree is calculated as floor((blockSize - keySize) / keySize). With 512-byte blocks and 8-byte keys, we get floor((512 - 8) / 8) = floor(63) = 43 pointers per leaf node.
Internal nodes use a different formula accounting for pointers, but the question asks for degree which typically refers to leaf node capacity in this context.