Re: RE: Lists of Names

Disk space is cheap; functionality is far more important. If this is what u want to do, then do it. Create an index on the name (e-gaad, that's a sin) (yes alter-ego, but it works !), If you have dynamic server, partition your table into different dbspaces/physical devices based on the index. Anyway, computers were made to prcoess unimaginably huge volumes of data and make similar numbers of calculations, so try it; if it works, don't worry about the ninnies who are obsessed with easing the burden on their hardware. If it doesn't work, then buy a second server and put just that table and select process on it; again, if the business needs demand the functionality, then it is worth doing whatever it takes. Having an index on the name field will reduce the response time of doing something like select ... where name < user_partname. Also, where the user enters a partname, append a wildcard to the end and you can do select... where name matches user_partname. I'm not so sure the first solution will work, because is Bob Smith less that Dave (since it is longer of length) ?