Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!ucsd!ucbvax!ucdavis!csusac!unify!craig From: craig@unify.uucp (Craig Isaacs) Newsgroups: comp.databases Subject: Re: text and binary fields (columns) Keywords: RDBMS, variable record length Message-ID: Date: 15 Feb 90 18:38:20 GMT References: <4qx80zz@unify.uucp> Reply-To: craig@unify.UUCP (Craig Isaacs) Organization: Unify Corporation, Sacramento, CA, USA Lines: 48 I apologize for the delay in the follow-up, as I was on the road.... jkrueger@dev.dtic.dla.mil (Jonathan Krueger) writes: craig@unify.uucp (Craig Isaacs) writes: >With variable width columns (UNIFY's "text" and "binary" field >types) customers can store images, documents, etc... as part of >their RDBMS so they can integrate their RDBMS applications with >other technologies. Oh, good. Please tell us how UNIFY selects on columns of this type. For instance, take the document idea, say given a table like +-----+ | emp | name hiredate resume +-----+---------+-------------------------------------------------+ | Stevans | 20 Sept 1989 | 1975 to 1978: wrote database ... | +---------+-------------------------------------------------+ would the select syntax look like select name from emp where fulltext(resume, "UNIX") = 1 Our syntax would look like: SELECT name FROM emp WHERE resume LIKE '%UNIX%'; [...] Also, please explain how indexing and storage structures would prevent exhaustive table scans. This will help us understand how UNIFY customers can integrate their RDBMS applications with other technologies. Actually, you could create indicies (indexes) on the text field; however, we are not in the business of creating full text retrieval packages (and therefore do not optimize for full text retrieval). The *technology* is there, however, so you *can* integrate with other technologies like full text retrieval and scanned images. -- Jon -- Jonathan Krueger jkrueger.dtic.dla.mil uunet!dgis!jkrueger -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Isaacs internet: craig@unify.UUCP Unify Corporation ...!{csusac,pyramid}!unify!craig