general b-tree idea

I have a question regarding the b-tree.
For a binary tree, i usually declare a node like:

Code:

struct node
{
	char value;

	node *left;
	node *right;
	node *parent;
};

For a b-tree with a four key reference, it might look like:

Code:

                      [1][D][2][T][3][ ][4][ ]
                      /          \
                     /            \
                    /              \ 
[1][A][2][C][3][D][4][ ]    [1][S][2][T][3][ ][4][ ]

So, would i declare a node like:

Code:

struct node
{
	char value1;
	char value2;
	char value3;
	char value4;

	node *one
	node *two;
	node *three;
	node *four;
        node *parent;
};

So, it's like a binary tree, except with more values and pointers. Is this the proper way to do this?

Thanks.

That looks like the basic idea, although perhaps one, two, three, and four aren't the world's best names. (You could maybe make it an array, node *children[4] or something.)

You'd have two arrays.

Code:

struct node
{
  node *links[CARDINALITY];
  boost::optional<VALUE> values[CARDINALITY - 1];
};