[ic] st=db

[Ed LaFrance]

At 12:13 PM 11/12/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>Why wouldn't you want every loop search to use st=db to search the database
>instead of the txt source file?  The txt file is only up to date when it has
>just been exported from the db file, right?  It seems like leaving st=db out
>of a loop search would send you searching through old data most of the time.
>I'm noticing that happening now that I've upgraded to mySQL, but maybe it
>was happening before too.
>
>- Grant

Ironically, you may get better performance out of those text-file searches 
now, since in most cases interchange applies a [loop search..] to SQL by 
doing a 'select * from table' to grab a copy of the entire table contents, 
essentially importing it and scanning it locally. This is not very 
efficient to say the least, and can kill your catalog's performance with 
large tables.

The best answer at this time is to start replacing interchange-type 
searches with SQL passed via the [query] tag; well-written queries and 
judicious indexing of SQL tables will give you impressive performance 
gains. Rewriting the code for the keyword search box and the standard 
foundation catalog results pages, sidebar links code (bar_link routine), 
components which utilize search code, etc., is also well worth the effort 
once you have comitted to SQL, IMHO.

- Ed L.

>

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