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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LUCENE-1231?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=12697470#action_12697470
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Michael McCandless commented on LUCENE-1231:
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{quote}
To my mind, column stride fields are more of a search tool - an extension of
the field caches and the "flexible indexing" concept
{quote}
I don't think of CSF's as an extension to FieldCache; I think of them as an
alternate (much more efficient than uninversion) underlying store that
FieldCache can use to retrieve values. Ie the way you'll access a CSF in
Lucene will be through the [new in LUCENE-831] FieldCache API.
{quote}
However, I think column-stride fields may be more of an imperative for Lucy
than Lucene. In Lucy, our sort caches will be either column-stride or
variable width and will be written out at index-time - mmap a
one-value-per-doc column-stride file, and voila: instant sort cache.
{quote}
I think column or row stride, vs fixed or variable width storage, are
orthogonal issues?
EG column-stride fields (in Lucene) could very well be variable width storage
(eg for storing String values).
{quote}
I can see that. However, the gain won't be all that significant for systems
where the index fits into RAM, or when the persistant storage device is an
SSD.
{quote}
SSDs, as fast as they are, are still orders of magnitude slower than RAM
(assuming of course the OS hasn't swapped your RAM out to your SSD ;).
> Column-stride fields (aka per-document Payloads)
> ------------------------------------------------
>
> Key: LUCENE-1231
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LUCENE-1231
> Project: Lucene - Java
> Issue Type: New Feature
> Components: Index
> Reporter: Michael Busch
> Assignee: Michael Busch
> Priority: Minor
> Fix For: 3.0
>
>
> This new feature has been proposed and discussed here:
> http://markmail.org/search/?q=per-document+payloads#query:per-document%20payloads+page:1+mid:jq4g5myhlvidw3oc+state:results
> Currently it is possible in Lucene to store data as stored fields or as
> payloads.
> Stored fields provide good performance if you want to load all fields for one
> document, because this is an sequential I/O operation.
> If you however want to load the data from one field for a large number of
> documents, then stored fields perform quite badly, because lot's of I/O seeks
> might have to be performed.
> A better way to do this is using payloads. By creating a "special" posting
> list
> that has one posting with payload for each document you can "simulate" a
> column-
> stride field. The performance is significantly better compared to stored
> fields,
> however still not optimal. The reason is that for each document the freq
> value,
> which is in this particular case always 1, has to be decoded, also one
> position
> value, which is always 0, has to be loaded.
> As a solution we want to add real column-stride fields to Lucene. A possible
> format for the new data structure could look like this (CSD stands for column-
> stride data, once we decide for a final name for this feature we can change
> this):
> CSDList --> FixedLengthList | <VariableLengthList, SkipList>
> FixedLengthList --> <Payload>^SegSize
> VariableLengthList --> <DocDelta, PayloadLength?, Payload>
> Payload --> Byte^PayloadLength
> PayloadLength --> VInt
> SkipList --> see frq.file
> We distinguish here between the fixed length and the variable length cases. To
> allow flexibility, Lucene could automatically pick the "right" data
> structure.
> This could work like this: When the DocumentsWriter writes a segment it
> checks
> whether all values of a field have the same length. If yes, it stores them as
> FixedLengthList, if not, then as VariableLengthList. When the SegmentMerger
> merges two or more segments it checks if all segments have a FixedLengthList
> with the same length for a column-stride field. If not, it writes a
> VariableLengthList to the new segment.
> Once this feature is implemented, we should think about making the column-
> stride fields updateable, similar to the norms. This will be a very powerful
> feature that can for example be used for low-latency tagging of documents.
> Other use cases:
> - replace norms
> - allow to store boost values separately from norms
> - as input for the FieldCache, thus providing significantly improved loading
> performance (see LUCENE-831)
> Things that need to be done here:
> - decide for a name for this feature :) - I think "column-stride fields" was
> liked better than "per-document payloads"
> - Design an API for this feature. We should keep in mind here that these
> fields are supposed to be updateable.
> - Define datastructures.
> I would like to get this feature into 2.4. Feedback about the open questions
> is very welcome so that we can finalize the design soon and start
> implementing.
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