Greetings Rob,
> > What is the optimum way to structure the database to allow for the > simplest user search? > Is it more efficient to store images and large documents in their > respective format on disc and the URL in the database or as blob objects? Most of the times, especially for read-only data(=images), going for the file-system is the right thing to do. Just make sure you don't put them all in a single directory ; employ a simple hash mechanism for deciding where to store them ( many files in a directory = performance problem with most FS flavor ) > A requirement is that searches will be entered in many languages > including all European, Asian and middle-eastern languages and scripts. > This may also be mixed languages where manufacturer name may be in the > middle of say Japanese script. > > Further, my clients expect the site to grow over a period of three years > from 4 initial languages to around 50 and service many more countries. > > I have defined so far a range of categories and sub categories, types, > manufacturers etc. I also intend to carry advertiser data, country, > language and images. Included may also be uploaded documents being > detailed specifications of vehicles in PDF and other formats although > they may be outside the search criteria (???) > My knowledge of applying single field search (ala Google) to multiple > tables is decidedly limited and I don't want to find myself in deep > water due to lack of specific knowledge. There are many things to consider here. Do you need additions and updates to be instantly indexed / searchable? Is it going to be keywords only ? What about advanced options ? Those are just some of the parameters that would come into play. Personally, I wouldn't use mySQL's LIKE or regular expression matching, nor it fulltext indices. I wouldn't even use mySQL for search at all. Still, you should try both ways ( and others, such as breaking down your text into words and mapping those words into objects -- I am sorry if that sounds confusing ) and see what works for you. Good luck, Mark -- Mark Papadakis http://www.markpapadakis.com/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
