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Home -> Community -> Usenet -> c.d.o.server -> Re: Storing real *large* integer values - ideas?
K Fein wrote:
>
> Thanks Barry,
> I was thinking along those lines, but was concerned about performance, i.e,
> this value would be the "unique identifier" for the transaction. Can I
> effectively index such as field? I am using ORACLE7 for NT.
Hi Kevin,
Performance would be dependant on the type of operation: {add, sub, mul} would be much faster than {div}. Using a chunk size (my own term...?) for arithmetic operations makes a difference of course in the number of loops required. For instance using a chunk of 10 digits at a time rather than 1 from each operand (to the limit of the default precision).
If the field is a VARCHAR2 (of max len 2000), then the field can be used in an index. You might have problems with "sort key too long", but these have been eased somewhat in Oracle v7.3.x, however this still could be limited by blocksize (maybe use 4096 or higher).
-- Barry P. Grove BCTEL (604)432-4468 barry_grove_at_mindlink.bc.ca Human Resources Consulting Developer, Oracle DBA, Unix Sysadmin 6-3777 Kingsway, Burnaby, BCReceived on Mon Dec 30 1996 - 00:00:00 CST