Re: Three cheers for 4gl's CONSTRUCT

Malcolm Weallans <onlinedbc@cix.compulink.co.uk> wrote (edited): >I hate to be the one who puts a damper on all this enthusiasm for >CONSTRUCT but it has to be looked at from the engine's point of view. >If you allow full use of CONSTRUCT you allow poeple to query on >non-indexed fields, Yes!!! >to use wildcards before text in fields which again >overrides the indexing. Yes, again!!! Don't forget the use of ranges (:), and ors (|), and greater thans (>), and less thans (<), and everything else that makes CONSTRUCT wonderful (and, to get echo the original point, makes it a real bear to try to imitate in another language). >On a large database this can be very expensive. Well, sure. But that doesn't matter to some (or a lot) of us. That's the great thing about CONSTRUCT. It's there if you need it. If you have concerns over speed and the like, you can always restrict the use of CONSTRUCT through your own programming (as you suggest below). >I personally recommend use of CONSTRUCT be restricted to situations where >it is not possible to do the searching any other way. And then only by a >well-trained users. rodney