Re: What's the most efficient primary key ?

Couple of basic thoughts.

Comparison operators, <, >, =, etc. should be a lot faster with integer types than with decimals or strings. This would be especially true if you were thinking of a string key model that would require where-clause conditions similar to "where str_key like '%123456'"; such a pattern match would make your indices useless. Whether I went with an int8 or a several int4 columns would be determined by whether my OS/hardware platform had native support of 64-bit integers or not and whether my data could be meaningfully divided into groups.

Your index model is likely to be just as important, if not more so, than the particular data type used for the key column(s). Being able to isolate the data reads to a particular section of disk, implying that a clustered index or fragmented table is used, is likely to be of more benefit than worrying about the number of CPU cycles spent comparing integers rather than strings.

IMHO,
Chris

"worldonline" <remco.van.toor_at_iquality.nl> wrote in message news:9elo7s$sf2$1_at_nereid.worldonline.nl...
> I want to create billions of unique key, wat's the best option?
>
> a compound key containing several integer-columns,
> a large datatype (decimal)
> or a string perhaps ??
>
> i would like the first options, it is good for using OID's
>
>
> thanks in advance,
> remco
>
>
>
Received on Sat Jul 21 2001 - 18:08:05 CDT