Re: (ITS#3989) syncprov core dumps when combined with uniqueness overlay

[quanah@stanford.edu]

--On Wednesday, August 31, 2005 2:24 AM -0700 Howard Chu <hyc@symas.com> 
wrote:

> quanah@stanford.edu wrote:
>> An odd thing that immediately jumps out to me here is the index_param
>> error for the uniqueness overlay attribute "suUniqueIdentifier".  No
>> where in the man page does it say there needs to be an index on unique
>> attributes, although I understand why it probably *should* be.
>
> Quite frankly I consider it redundant and inappropriate for *any*
> overlay's documentation to mention indexing, since indexing is not a
> function of any overlay. It is sufficient that the overlay's doc mentions
> that it functions by performing searches.
>
> What you do to make those searches efficient is up to you as the
> administrator, in the context of the actual backend that is combined with
> the overlay. I.e., you are expected to use your brain and make the
> logical connection between "this overlay performs a search" and "searches
> on this backend type may be indexed to improve performance." Clearly it
> is beyond the scope of an overlay author's responsibility to make this
> connection for you, since overlays are intended to be usable with any
> backend and the majority of backends don't support indexing.

Hm, I tend to consider "man pages" to be manuals, so like when I read my 
car manual, it doesn't tell me it takes "fuel" to drive it, it actually 
lets me know that I need "unleaded fuel" and if it needs a more enhanced 
leaded fuel with a higher octane rating.  I think any functional 
information that helps the end user use a product correctly is useful 
information, especially for a usage manual.  Perhaps in this case, a TIPS 
section at the end of the man page that could note that indexing the unique 
attributes with an equality index will increase performance, but that not 
all backends support indexing. ;)

--Quanah


--
Quanah Gibson-Mount
Principal Software Developer
ITSS/Shared Services
Stanford University
GnuPG Public Key: http://www.stanford.edu/~quanah/pgp.html

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