What is "b-tree"

n. (context computing English) An indexed data structure suitable for storage of a large number of items in a balanced fashion, with very few disk hits required for locating the correct record block.

In computer science, a B-tree is a self-balancing tree data structure that keeps data sorted and allows searches, sequential access, insertions, and deletions in logarithmic time. The B-tree is a generalization of a binary search tree in that a node can have more than two children . Unlike self-balancing binary search trees, the B-tree is optimized for systems that read and write large blocks of data. B-trees are a good example of a data structure for external memory. It is commonly used in databases and filesystems.