Re: btree.sgml typo?

On Sat, Jan 5, 2019 at 1:35 AM Tatsuo Ishii <ishii(at)sraoss(dot)co(dot)jp> wrote:
> <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> includes an implementation of the
> standard <acronym>btree</acronym> (multi-way binary tree) index data
> structure.
>
> I think the term "btree" here means "multi-way balanced tree", rather
> than "multi-way binary tree". In fact in our btree, there could be
> more than one key in a node. Patch attached.

+1 for applying this patch. The existing wording is highly confusing,
especially because many people already incorrectly think that a B-Tree
is just like a self-balancing binary search tree.

There is no consensus on exactly what the "b" actually stands for, but
it's definitely not "binary". I suppose that the original author meant
that a B-Tree is a generalization of a binary tree, which is basically
true -- though that's a very academic point.
--
Peter Geoghegan