Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!eagle.wesleyan.edu!aliao
From: aliao@eagle.wesleyan.edu
Newsgroups: comp.theory
Subject: A B-Trees query
Message-ID: <1990Aug13.213720.32365@eagle.wesleyan.edu>
Date: 14 Aug 90 02:37:20 GMT
Lines: 17

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