Finding things Quickly II: Overview II
So far, the only way we have to retrieve or find records quickly is by using their RRN (in case the record is of fixed-length).
Without a RRN or in the case of variable-length records, the only way, so far, to look for a record is by doing a sequential search. This is a very inefficient method.
We are interested in more efficient ways to retrieve records based on their key-value.