RE: fast search or scan for words in selected field

Wayne,

Just thinking this through, it seems you have a customer master file with an
associated "search index" file.  You parse each "word" in a text string as a
seperate entry in your search index.

The file gets big because you carry blanks for each index entry you create.
Instead of storing the raw text in your search file, consider using Soundex
or Metaphone (or other method) to compress your search file.  Instead of 20
bytes per entry, soundex would carry four bytes, or six bytes for metaphone.
Then to search, you get the soundex of the search string and simply
setll/reade to collect all the matches.  

You get additional benefits by being able to return some misspelled matches.



Eric DeLong
Sally Beauty Company
MIS-Project Manager (BSG)
940-898-7863 or ext. 1863



-----Original Message-----
From: rpg news [mailto:rpgnews@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2004 7:22 AM
To: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: fast search or scan for words in selected field


Hi,

We currently have customer master file which has customer company name
field. Customer company name field is 20 long, if this field has "MY
TEST COMPANY" description saved then we have another program which will
make three records for this records in our custom file, first records
with their customer number and name  will have "MY" and second record
will have "TEST" and the third record will have "COMPANY". We have to do
this for fast search by any description given by customers.  Our files
are getting huge and want to know if there is another quick way to
handel this on green screen. I thank you for your time.

Wayne


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