On Fri, 06 Mar 2015 08:58:36 -0500, you wrote: Thanks folks, particularly to Ann - that bit about the way Firebird arranges the indexes itself was the clincher. It seems difficult to find a full manual for Firebird unless I speak Russian (I don't!), all there seems to be on the main site are updates - unless this is meant to mean the full manual updated to version 2.5, in which case it's a strange (and misleading) way to put it.
Brian. >Hi all, > > >I have volunteered to write a statistics-type program in >Lazarus/FreePascal under Linux and I need an embedded database, that >means it has to be Firebird. I've used a lot of database software >before, but never Firebird (nor Interbase, for that matter). I do NOT >want to force users to install a full-blown database server in order >to use the software. > > >My problem is that I must avoid duplicated records in the database, >the unique key is a complicated structure containing four 16-bit words >plus a 108-bit set of flags. The combination of the whole lot must be >unique. I don't need to retrieve this data other than to check for >duplicate records, so I can massage it in FreePascal so that it can go >into the database in any form that's desirable. > > >If I were using PostgreSQL, I'd store the whole lot as a single >172-bit bitstring, but I can't find any mention of an equivalent data >type in the Firebird documentation that I've been able to find. > > >So, how would you store this data for greatest speed/efficiency in >checking for duplicates, please? I'm looking at a few million records >in the database, and there's a record size of around 350-400 bytes. > > > > >Thanks, > > >Brian. > > >------------------------------------ >Posted by: brian <[email protected]> >------------------------------------ > >++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > >Visit http://www.firebirdsql.org and click the Documentation item >on the main (top) menu. Try FAQ and other links from the left-side menu there. > >Also search the knowledgebases at >http://www.ibphoenix.com/resources/documents/ > >++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ >------------------------------------ > >Yahoo Groups Links > > >
