Abstract: The system, method, and program product of this invention allows a database management system to internally use direct and indirect pointing to locate targeted data elements that are logically related to another data element or are a target of a secondary index. By using direct and indirect pointing, the number of steps involved in a reorganization of the database can be reduced. After a reorganization, the database management system does not go back, in a separate process, to update all of the direct pointers that have pointed to segments that have moved as a result of the reorganization. Instead, the direct pointer is updated, by using the indirect pointer, only upon a first reference to the targeted data element that has moved.

Abstract: The system, method, and program product of this invention allows a database management system to internally use direct and indirect pointing to locate targeted data elements that are logically related to another data element or are a target of a secondary index. By using direct and indirect pointing, the number of steps involved in a reorganization of the database can be reduced. After a reorganization, the database management system does not go back, in a separate process, to update all of the direct pointers that have pointed to segments that have moved as a result of the reorganization. Instead, the direct pointer is updated, by using the indirect pointer, only upon a first reference to the targeted data element that has moved. Each targeted data element has an entry in an indirect index where a unique identifier of the targeted data element is the key into the index. The indirect index has two direct pointer slots. Which pointer slot is used by the DBMS is determined by the odd/even reorganization number.