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Afroblanca
Starting Member
9 Posts |
 Posted - 2005-08-15 : 10:59:40
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| The schema that I am designing has several tables containing fields for holding large amounts of ascii text. These tables will be searched very frequently. My question is threefold :1) When should I use a varchar, and when should I use a text field?2) Should I put these fields in their own tables?3) What kinds of things can I do to make searching as fast as possible?Please keep in mind that I am not a DBA, and don't understand a lot of the jargon. Thanks. |
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simondeutsch
Aged Yak Warrior
547 Posts |
Posted - 2005-08-15 : 11:13:25
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| 1. VARCHAR columns have a max capacity of 8000 characters, which is only about a page of text. Additionally, the max row length is 8060, so that means you would technically only be able to have 1 varchar column of 8000, and several small columns not exceeding 60 bytes per row. TEXT fields cap out at 2GB, and the data is stored in pages outside the table. No space is used unless it is required.2. You can combine several TEXT fields in one table, but this depends on your relational model. If you will post more info, we can help you better on this.3. You will need Full-Text Indexing. This is a subject on itself, and isn't available in MSDE or SQL Server Desktop Edition.Sarah Berger MCSD |
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coolerbob
Aged Yak Warrior
841 Posts |
Posted - 2005-08-15 : 11:36:12
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| On your 3rd question...Full-text searching is quite easy to set up and it's very very quick. It's worth reading up on. |
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How to design a schema for fast text searching