Re: Order of key fields

[James Lampert <jamesl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Booth Martin wrote:
> Lets say you have 10,000 items, and these items are spread evenly across:
> - 4 colors
> - 12 sizes
> - 40 package possibilities
> - and 500 patterns
>
> The most efficient search is to do the most restrictive choice first.
>
> If you choose a specific pattern first then you have immediately 
> narrowed your search to 10,000/500, or only 20 items left to choose from.
>
> If you selected color first, you would only narrow your choices to 
> 10,000/4, or 2,500 left to narrow down.

Hmm. I haven't been following the thread, but one thing occurs to me 
immediately:

Let's assume the given example is some consumer product. The potential 
customer might conceivably want to browse through all the available 
patterns for one or more specific combinations of color, size, and 
package-type. Which would suggest it might be wise to provide multiple 
indexes to the file.

--
James H. H. Lampert
Professional Dilettante
http://www.hbquik.com/jamesl