On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 3:09 AM, Sergei Golubchik <serg@stripped> wrote:
> Hi, Vyacheslav!
>
> On May 13, Vyacheslav Akhmechet wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> When the server calles index_read and related functions, it passes
>> keypart_map which indicates which parts of the key are present. I'm
>> not completely sure how to handle the implementation of this - if the
>> semantics of keypart_map are such that any of the bits may be set or
>> unset, I don't know how an efficient implementation can be possible.
>>
>> Suppose a given key has two parts, A and B, and I build an index on
>> this key (by combining A and B in lexicographic order, or a similar
>> technique). Now, suppose index_read is called, and part A is missing
>> from the key. In this case the index is essentially useless - I need
>> to do a full table scan. I don't see how one could implement an index
>> to get around this.
>>
>> Am I misunderstanding the purpose/semantics of keypart_map?
>
> No, you are not. Btree indexes, indeed, cannot support this feature.
> Bitmap indexes, I presume, can.
Btrees can and do support index scans in this case. Check out index
skip scan in Oracle.
http://www.google.com/search?q=index+skip+scan
--
Mark Callaghan
mdcallag@stripped
