recordsbased

Recordsbased refers to a data organization and processing approach in which information is stored and accessed primarily as discrete records (rows), each consisting of named fields. In a recordsbased system, operations are often performed on whole records rather than on individual fields, and storage tends to be row-oriented, aligning with traditional row-store databases and line-delimited record formats.

Key characteristics include a row-oriented layout, schemas that enforce field names and types, and efficient insertion, update, and deletion of complete records. Indexing commonly targets a record’s primary key or unique identifier, enabling fast point queries. Many recordsbased systems emphasize transactional integrity and support ACID properties, making them suitable for workloads that require consistent, current data across many records.

Recordsbased storage is frequently contrasted with columnar (field-based) approaches, where data is stored by column to optimize analytical queries that scan large datasets but touch only a subset of fields. Row-based designs excel in transactional scenarios with frequent full-record reads and writes, while columnar designs often outperform for wide-scan analytics and aggregations.

Common use cases include online transaction processing (OLTP), user profile stores, event-driven systems, and other workloads that require frequent updates to complete records. The term can also apply more broadly to programming contexts where data structures are built around records or objects with named fields, as opposed to purely functional or field-centric representations.

Related concepts include row-oriented databases, columnar databases, and record data types in programming languages.