A Note on Record Addressing
Usually, the DBMS creates large physical records, or blocks, on its direct access files. These records are used as containers for logical records. Typically, each physical record has many logical records. Here, we assume that each physical record is addressed by its relative record number (RRN). Thus, a logical rec-ord might be assigned to physical record number 7, 77, or 10,000. The relative record number is thus the logical record’s physical address. If each physical record has more than one logical record, the address must also specify where the logical record is within the physical record. Thus, the complete address for a logical record might be relative record number 77, byte location 100. This means the record begins in byte 100 of physical record 77.