Chapter 11. Searching and Indexing

In this chapter, we'll look at two closely related topics: indexing and searching. Why are they related? Simple. Sure, you can search without an appropriate index, but you'll quickly run into performance troubles as your dataset grows beyond a trivial size. If you've ever done any sort of database-driven development, consider the performance problems you might have run into when testing for a value in a non-indexed column.

We'll introduce you to some methods for searching, but more importantly, indexing your data for more efficient search times in this chapter. Our concentration will be on building an index, which you'll then search against. Specifically, we'll dive into the following topics in some form: