A Practitioner's Guide To Addressing Algorithms This paper consolidates a number of popular rules of thumb which have been suggested for the design of record addressing algorithms, and discusses the applicability of these rules to large commercial databases. Guidelines for selecting identifier transformations, overflow techniques, loading factors, bucket sizes, and loading order and considered. Particular attention is focused on the reasonableness of common heuristics for determining primary or secondary bucket sizes. A mathematical model which explicitly considers storage device characteristics and time/space cost tradeoffs is used to analyze the effect of design parameters on overall system costs. A specific design example is presented and solved. CACM June, 1976 Severance, D. Duhne, R. data management, file retrieval, searching, addressing techniques, hashing functions, synonym resolution, loading factor, bucket size, heuristic design, rules of thumb 3.50 3.72 3.74 4.33 4.34 4.41 8.1 CA760602 JB January 4, 1978 2:47 PM 1785 4 2860 2203 4 2860 2258 4 2860 2282 4 2860 2319 4 2860 2313 4 2860 2359 4 2860 2437 4 2860 2552 4 2860 2781 4 2860 2860 4 2860 2860 4 2860 2860 4 2860 2991 4 2860 3083 4 2860 911 4 2860 1328 5 2860 2203 5 2860 2860 5 2860 2860 5 2860 2860 5 2860 492 5 2860