Temporary Index

John · Post by **John** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:10 am

I believe I recall some discussion or announcement of a "Temporary Index" feature - where can I find more information on this? Any ideas?

-John

John · Post by **John** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:14 am

perhaps the "Index Facility" is the proper place for the docuemtation of this feature to reside, or perhaps the "Index" command page and it should be combined... not sure... but neither seem to have it... however I would welcome your two cents on weather or not these two pages should be one or not.

Post by **Susan Smith** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:14 am

John,

What was the context of the discussion? I don't remember anything about this, but if you have any other information, it might remind me. What would you want a temporary index for? I create them all the time (always have) and just delete them when I'm finished.

-- Susan

Post by **Susan Smith** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:15 am

I guess I don't understand why a temporary index would be any different than a permanent one.

-- Susan

John · Post by **John** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:19 am

Well I'm not sure what it does exactaly... My understanding (which may be skewed) was that when you closed the primary file the index was deleted automatically... This would save me all of one line of code... however if there's a more right way to do what I'm doing, why not save the one line of code...

Maybe Temporary Indexes are just a figment of my imagination and there is no such thing. My memory does prove to be incorrect from time to time.

Post by **Susan Smith** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:55 am

Well, I'll be interested if the temporary index DOES exist in some way other than a regular index that you delete when no longer needed. But in either case, I'd think that anything related to indexing should go in the existing index page in the wiki rather than having a new page. Just my thoughts.

-- Susan

John · Post by **John** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 12:17 pm

Re: BRWiki portion of topic
Susan,
Just to make sure I'm understanding you correctly, you believe that the two current BRWiki articles "Index" and "Index Facility" should be combined into "Index." Is that correct?

Post by **Susan Smith** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 12:27 pm

I'm not sure that I understand the distinction. When you say "Index", don't you mean the "Index Facility"? Or are you wanting (in the wiki) to separate the way you MAKE indexes from the index files themselves? Or is there another kind of index?

Sorry. Apparently, I'm as dense as the smoke around my house today. I live at the base of Mt. Wilson, which is in the path of the Station Fire in Southern California. Maybe it's hit the national news. It's already burned 86,000 acres since Wednesday and isn't expected to be contained until Sept 8th. So I have smoke on the brain.

-- Susan

John · Post by **John** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 12:33 pm

Currently on the brwiki we have two pages. One is titled "Index" which in the command category. The other is titled "Index Facility." My side question was - do you think these two pages should be combined into one or kept separate?

Post by **Susan Smith** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 1:17 pm

I'd think they should be combined. But that's just my opinion.

-- Susan

Gabriel · Post by **Gabriel** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 1:22 pm

John,

You may be thinking of the SORT facility, which has the ability to create temporary indexes on the fly. These indexes are temporary, which means that they are NOT automatically updated each time you update the data file. They are not, however, automatically deleted. You still have to do that part yourself.

The Sort facility has the ability to create much more advanced indexes then the index command. The only reason you would use a temporary index (using the SORT facility) is to take advantage of the extra sorting options that are available. As far as I know, however, it does not automatically get deleted for you or anything like that.

Gabriel

John wrote:Well I'm not sure what it does exactaly... My understanding (which may be skewed) was that when you closed the primary file the index was deleted automatically... This would save me all of one line of code... however if there's a more right way to do what I'm doing, why not save the one line of code...

Maybe Temporary Indexes are just a figment of my imagination and there is no such thing. My memory does prove to be incorrect from time to time.

John · Post by **John** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 1:31 pm

Yeah - that's probably it. I was probably thinking of sort. I don't see that that feature has gotten documented either, but I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for.

As a side note - I've noticed that the sort command and sort facility have been merged into one article. Later I'll do the same for Index... unless someone objects quickly.

Rick Graham · Post by **Rick Graham** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 1:33 pm

If you really think about it, all indexes are temporary. They are only indexes when you link them to the data file with an open statement, otherwise they are just another file to the operating system. If you forget to open one when you are updating the data file, the index is not updated. This can be both a blessing and a curse.

Rick Graham

Gabriel wrote:John,

You may be thinking of the SORT facility, which has the ability to create temporary indexes on the fly. These indexes are temporary, which means that they are NOT automatically updated each time you update the data file. They are not, however, automatically deleted. You still have to do that part yourself.

The Sort facility has the ability to create much more advanced indexes then the index command. The only reason you would use a temporary index (using the SORT facility) is to take advantage of the extra sorting options that are available. As far as I know, however, it does not automatically get deleted for you or anything like that.

Gabriel

John wrote:Well I'm not sure what it does exactaly... My understanding (which may be skewed) was that when you closed the primary file the index was deleted automatically... This would save me all of one line of code... however if there's a more right way to do what I'm doing, why not save the one line of code...

Maybe Temporary Indexes are just a figment of my imagination and there is no such thing. My memory does prove to be incorrect from time to time.

Gabriel · Post by **Gabriel** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 1:35 pm

Just a piece of shameless advertising for a piece of free software: If you use FileIO, the indexes are always updated for you. FileIO handles all that stuff so you don't have to worry about it.

Gabriel

Rick Graham wrote:If you really think about it, all indexes are temporary. They are only indexes when you link them to the data file with an open statement, otherwise they are just another file to the operating system. If you forget to open one when you are updating the data file, the index is not updated. This can be both a blessing and a curse.

Rick Graham
Gabriel wrote:John,

You may be thinking of the SORT facility, which has the ability to create temporary indexes on the fly. These indexes are temporary, which means that they are NOT automatically updated each time you update the data file. They are not, however, automatically deleted. You still have to do that part yourself.

The Sort facility has the ability to create much more advanced indexes then the index command. The only reason you would use a temporary index (using the SORT facility) is to take advantage of the extra sorting options that are available. As far as I know, however, it does not automatically get deleted for you or anything like that.

Gabriel

John wrote:Well I'm not sure what it does exactaly... My understanding (which may be skewed) was that when you closed the primary file the index was deleted automatically... This would save me all of one line of code... however if there's a more right way to do what I'm doing, why not save the one line of code...

Maybe Temporary Indexes are just a figment of my imagination and there is no such thing. My memory does prove to be incorrect from time to time.

Rick Graham · Post by **Rick Graham** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 2:49 pm

However you could still create an index outside of FileIO that would never be updated. A true database would never allow this.

Rick

Gabriel wrote:Just a piece of shameless advertising for a piece of free software: If you use FileIO, the indexes are always updated for you. FileIO handles all that stuff so you don't have to worry about it.

Gabriel

Rick Graham wrote:If you really think about it, all indexes are temporary. They are only indexes when you link them to the data file with an open statement, otherwise they are just another file to the operating system. If you forget to open one when you are updating the data file, the index is not updated. This can be both a blessing and a curse.

Rick Graham
Gabriel wrote:John,

You may be thinking of the SORT facility, which has the ability to create temporary indexes on the fly. These indexes are temporary, which means that they are NOT automatically updated each time you update the data file. They are not, however, automatically deleted. You still have to do that part yourself.

The Sort facility has the ability to create much more advanced indexes then the index command. The only reason you would use a temporary index (using the SORT facility) is to take advantage of the extra sorting options that are available. As far as I know, however, it does not automatically get deleted for you or anything like that.

Gabriel