Re: [Exist-open] query speed problem: eXist or inefficient XQuery statement

[Christian W. <wi...@ka...>]

Jeff Wallman <jef...@tb...> writes:

>
> So the question is, should I be structuring the collections
> differently?  Or specifying indices differently?  Or using a different
> XQuery statement.  Was wondering if anyone has any thoughts.
>

Hi Jeff,

To solve similar problems with eXist, I have employed two strategies,
sometimes combined. 

The first one is to define range indexes on items you are looking up
frequently, this can speed up things quite a lot.  However, you might
not be able to do things like [position()=1], since currently
range-indices are defined using a XPath-like syntax, but don't provide
support for all constructs.  

The second strategy is to use a derived proxy document, which provides
the information you need in a way that makes it fast and easy to
access and then jump to the original location.  I am using XSLT to
derive the proxy document, which gives you the full power of XPath and
more. The downside is the growth in size and that you will end up with
a homegrown indexing system.  In my case (which I am still
developping), there are about 500 MB of Chinese documents and speedy
access to a KWIC is crucial, so I could live with the other
drawbacks. 
  
I hope this helps somehow,

Christian



-- 
 Christian Wittern 
 Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University
 47 Higashiogura-cho, Kitashirakawa, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8265, JAPAN