Re: How to store emails with fulltext index

Marten Lehmann wrote:
> Hello,
>
> we are planning to move our mails from local clients (like Thunderbird)
> into the database.
>
> We experienced long search times with the local clients doing fulltext
> search and I guess this would be same if we store the messages as simple
> varchar() records.
>
> Does oracle come with a special email record type that includes
> attachments and fulltext index? How would you recommend to store our
> mails into the database?
>
> Regards
> Marten

I do hope that would be varchar2...

And no - Oracle is an RDBMS, not an email server, and does not know email record types.
I would think oracle stores the email in CLOBs (Character Large OBjects), attachments in BLOBs (Binary Large Objs). Both can be indexed, using OracleText.

Of course, you could buy an Oracle Collaboration Suite licence, which includes Oracle's email implementation - better than Exchange, so they say.
From what I hear, OCS is remarkably cheap for the product. Not sure if OracleText is included. Just give your Oracle Rep a call.

Oh - and varchar2 objects can be text indexed as well; guess the majority of mails fits in 4000 characters (using a decent mail program, that produces plain text), like TBird

-- 
Regards,
Frank van Bortel

Top-posting is one way to shut me up...