Re: What's the most efficient primary key ?

Joe Maloney wrote in message ...
>The first two questions are why and where.
>
>That is, the most efficient key is not necessarily an identity value.
>How many foreign key relationships (parent/child) are there going to
>be? It may be more efficient to use a text string in some cases.
>
>Not all applications need primary keys.
>This is the why.
>
>The most efficient key is probably going to be a hash value if it can
>be reconciled to a given page/cluster/disk address. But that may take
>petabytes of storage if you have billions of keys.
>
>This is the where.
>
>The whole thing hinges more on your application needs and platform
>than an academic foot stomping.
>

To ward off any evil like cross-group flame-wars (and we need another one of those like we need a hole in the head), I'd like to say that OTC (the clown) was right insofar as the ifx server is concerned - pending use of an appropriate index to optimise access by the serial key. It's perfect for the requested job. Whether that applies to other engines, can only be answered by guru's of those other engines.

It really sounds like "remco" is either fishing for an engine to choose, or he's trolling for a flame war. That's why I'm nervous...

--
"Dis act ain't about lafter - it's about comedy" - Andrew Dice Clay