Holy cow - thanks all for the input. This is really being extraordinarily interesting.

OK, i've pretty much digested the common thread to replies - that so long as the data fits in memory, there should be no surprise that a custom coded Perl solution beats an overhead-laden rdbms soltuion. The question is a strategic one - trade flexibility, robustness and standardization for speed, or not?

demerphq's ideas appear to me to closely resemble my DB3 - splitting the data up into enough mysql tables to have every column indexed, except I went to the extreme and had one column per table. We got the result he expected - DB3 was the fastest of all mysql-based queries. The mere fact he suggested doing something like this makes me think I should keep this solution in the back of my mind - maybe sometimes odd design can justify itself.

BrowserUK - you are a coding machine! But I'm not clear on how we went from talking about 250milliseconds-per-query in paragraph 2, then 250 queries-per-millisecond in paragraph 4. I do very much like your string-row solution. Again, it's giving me ideas about reading up on piddles. Do I understand correctly that the trial times are for a single execution? If so, it looks like your strategy applied to 3,000 individual text tables is still holding the speed record. Thanks.

I think then what I have in DB4 is a baseline. This is a fast as you could possibly hope for, so shoot for the closest to to that within a mysql solution. At least we know how 'good' a solution is with a baseline for comparison. I wonder if a hand-coded Perl query system might make a good standard practice in database development when the data lends itself to that, so that developers know how fast is fast in a particular situation?

The various treatments of DB1 & 2, including dragonchild's, make me really want to see that schema approach the baseline. I think it might be the best compromise.

SO, I'm embarking on a matrix of tests on that schema. The variables are:

• order of declaration of columns
• order of declaratino of compound primary key
• order of declaration of KEYs
• order of population of series (which for-loop goes inside which)

I count a total of 24 permutations, including ones with no KEYs. This wil take a day or two to find time - - - then I'll start a new thread.

Then we'll make a strategic choice.

Thanks all for your participation.

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.