Heap file organization

• It is the simplest and most basic type of organization. It works with data blocks. In heap file organization, the records are inserted at the file's end. When the records are inserted, it doesn't require the sorting and ordering of records.
• When the data block is full, the new record is stored in some other block. This new data block need not to be the very next data block, but it can select any data block in the memory to store new records. The heap file is also known as an unordered file.
• In the file, every record has a unique id, and every page in a file is of the same size. It is the DBMS responsibility to store and manage the new records.

Insertion of a new record

Suppose we have five records R1, R3, R6, R4 and R5 in a heap and suppose we want to insert a new record R2 in a heap. If the data block 3 is full then it will be inserted in any of the database selected by the DBMS, let's say data block 1.

If we want to search, update or delete the data in heap file organization, then we need to traverse the data from staring of the file till we get the requested record.

If the database is very large then searching, updating or deleting of record will be time-consuming because there is no sorting or ordering of records. In the heap file organization, we need to check all the data until we get the requested record.

Pros of Heap file organization

• It is a very good method of file organization for bulk insertion. If there is a large number of data which needs to load into the database at a time, then this method is best suited.
• In case of a small database, fetching and retrieving of records is faster than the sequential record.

Cons of Heap file organization

• This method is inefficient for the large database because it takes time to search or modify the record.
• This method is inefficient for large databases.