Indexes

[Ruslan Zasukhin]

On 6/1/06 4:15 PM, "Joakim Schramm" <joakim at astrocalc.com> wrote:

Hi Joakim,

> This may be a kind of "stupid" question, but I am not that in depth familiar
> with all agles of databases.
> 
> I simply wonder "when" is it really benefital or even necessary to index a
> field? Is it soley in regards of searches? I assume a field can be searched
> if not indexed as well, but lets say if it just is question of random or not
> so frequent searches, mostly looking for and returning a single records, how
> big impact are we talking of here in performance? I assume count of records
> also makes a difference here? Lets say it just 10000 or even 1000 records to
> search does an index really make a notible difference?

You need index fields which you use often in searches. Point.

The more indexes - the faster searches,
The more indexed - the slower Add/Delete.

You search for a gold middle.

I think in your case you will fill db by some records,
After this db will be stable enough, right ?
And only searches will be made to your db mainly.
The same is true for e.g. WEB dbs.

-
If you do one search on 1000 records, may be you will not see difference
But if you do such searches in hot loop ..


-- 
Best regards,

Ruslan Zasukhin
VP Engineering and New Technology
Paradigma Software, Inc

Valentina - Joining Worlds of Information
http://www.paradigmasoft.com

[I feel the need: the need for speed]