Re: slow search on indexed attribute

["Medievalist" <ldap@HBCS.Org>]

At my shop, people are constantly doing a single-character search on givenName, 
because we only have one employee whose first name (Xiomara) starts with X. 

See, Joe End-User doesn't understand database indexing and he knows that only 
Zuparto, Zulcwowzwi, and Zltnk (out of the company's 12,000 users) have names 
that start with Z.  So he just types "Z" and hits search...  From his point of 
view, this should be faster, because he saved himself from laboriously typing 
in that screwy eastern European name.

Just an observation.

--Charlie

On 3 May 2004 at 12:45, Jon Roberts wrote:
> Pierangelo Masarati wrote:
> >>On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 at 1:06pm, Armbrust, Daniel C. wrote:
> >>>>It looks like if I do a search for 3 or less characters, it fails to
> >>>use the index.
> >>>
> >>>Because the index key length is defined (in slap.h) to be 4
> >>>characters.
> >>
> >>Is there a discussion someplace about why the number 4 was chosen and
> >>the repercussions of choosing a smaller number?
> > 
> > I guess any number would have been too long for someone and too short for
> > someone else.  I really cannot find any better explanation.
> 
> The I guess my response would have to be that 4 is to long for me, at 
> least by a character. Somebody looking for Roberts, Robards, or 
> Roberson, or ... hey what was that last name again could probably 
> generate a (sn=rob*) query before he's done. The response he would get 
> now for such a filter doesn't seem to do much good for client or server. 
> Linguists may have better guidance, but I know a lot of 3 character word 
> roots.
>