A concept in electronic databases.

An inverted file is a file that reorganizes the structure of an existing data file (the "linear file") to enable a rapid search to be made for all records having one field falling within set limits.

For example, a file used by a bibliographic database may store author names, title words, journal names etc. in inverted files. When a term is identified in an inverted file, the record number is given and a set of records corresponding to the search criteria are created.