https://www.bradcypert.com/tags/data-structures/ Recent content in Data Structures on BradCypert.com Hugo en-us Tue, 09 Sep 2025 19:03:47 -0400 https://www.bradcypert.com/writing-a-b-tree-in-zig/ Sun, 06 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bradcypert.com/writing-a-b-tree-in-zig/ <p>When building an embedded database, one of the most critical decisions is choosing the right data structure for storage and retrieval. After implementing a complete B+ tree from scratch in Zig for LowkeyDB, I want to share the journey, the challenges, and the (hopefully) elegant solutions that emerged.</p> <h2 id="what-is-a-b-tree-and-why-should-you-care">What is a B+ Tree and Why Should You Care?</h2> <p>A B+ Tree is a self-balancing tree data structure that maintains sorted data and allows searches, sequential access, insertions, and deletions in logarithmic time. It's the backbone of most modern database systems, including PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite.</p> https://www.bradcypert.com/a-brief-introduction-to-tries/ Fri, 30 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bradcypert.com/a-brief-introduction-to-tries/ <p>Hello there! Welcome back! Today I’m talking about Tries (pronounced “trys”). Tries are a type of search tree commonly used for storing and searching single characters that make up one or more strings. What make a trie interesting is that the first node contains an empty value and the descendants of a node have a common prefix associated with that node.</p> <p>Like most data structures, tries are easier to reason about when you have a picture to help explain it. Let’s take the word “propane” break it apart into a trie. Each character will be represented as a node.</p>