merge search

merge search

[′mərj ‚sərch] (computer science) A procedure for searching a table in which both the table and file records must first be ordered in the same sequence on the key involved, and the table is searched sequentially until a table-record key equal to or greater than the file-record key is found, upon which the file record is processed if its key is equal, and the process is repeated with the next file record, starting at the table position where the previous search terminated.