fastes way to search an array?

Phil Davis revdev at pdslabs.net
Wed Apr 22 16:26:10 EDT 2015


Hi Tiemo,

How many levels deep are the array elements you want to search?

How many words might each of the searchable array elements contain?

How is the array keyed - by sequential number, a preassigned numeric ID, 
a content description, ...?

Would it be worth your time when loading the primary array to build a 
second array that indexes the primary keys by word? (i.e. make an 
alternate index) Then finding which words are in which primary array 
elements would be easy.

But if your array is "flat" enough, I like Geoff's idea of combining and 
filtering it. But you haven't told us much about its structure.

Thanks -
Phil Davis


On 4/22/15 6:20 AM, Tiemo Hollmann TB wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have an array with 20000 records, where I want to extract all records,
> which either "begins with" or "contains" a search string.
>
> Up to now I just loop thru the whole array, do the compare and extract the
> result records. I wonder, if there is a way to speed up this search? E.g.,
> does it makes a difference, if I compare the string in the key or the data
> of the array while looping thru? I mean, would it make a difference, if I
> would create an "associative" array, where my search looks up in the keys of
> the array, either by looping thru the array, or by extracting first the keys
> of the array into a separate variable, instead in the data of the original
> array?
>
> Would it make a difference looping thru a variable, which just contains the
> keys of the array, instead of looping thru the complete array, because of
> the smaller "footprint" in the memory?
>
> Or shouldn't I care about these differences and just let LC makes its job?
>
> Any experiences welcome,
>
> Tiemo
>
>   
>
>   
>
>   
>
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-- 
Phil Davis





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