Guys, I have a general question about designing databases for large data sets. I was speaking with a colleague about an application we're preparing to build. One of the application's tables will potentially contain 2 million or more names, containing (at least) the fields first_name, last_name, middle_name and prefix. A common lookup the application will require is the full name, so prefix + first_name + middle_name + last_name. My friend's suggestion was to create a "lookup field" in the table itself, which would contain a concatenation of these fields created during insert. So, for each record, we'd having each individual field and then a full_name field that would contain the combination of the ind. fields. His argument is that this will make lookups in this manner extremely fast and efficient. I agree with his assertion, but get the feeling that this is sort of an ugly design. Would a compound index on these fields really be less efficient? Thanks for your help! John ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
