aliao@eagle.wesleyan.edu (08/14/90)
Hullo - I've got a question:
I was reading up on B-Trees in order to write up my own
general B-Tree library routines. I went through the originial
Bayer/McCreight paper from Acta Informatica ('72). Am I
overlooking something or is the general algorithm for B-Tree
deletion not applicable in the case of 2-3 trees?
I went and looked at the Aho/Hopcroft/Ullman books, and
the indication seems to be that 2-3 Trees are a special case of
B-Trees and are handled differently. The deletion behavior of
2-3 Trees seems to shrink bottom up rather than top-down as is
generally the case with larger B-Trees (i.e. 3-5,4-7 trees, etc).
Is this pathological behavior the reason why the general B-Tree
deletion algorithm is not usable for 2-3 trees? Thanks in advance.
- drew liao