Re: Mixed case text searches - Mailing list pgsql-novice

From Thom Brown
Subject Re: Mixed case text searches
Date
Msg-id AANLkTil_rImE2qyHeI0gudFHZbLNsU-ABSLamL-Sgr6T@mail.gmail.com
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In response to Mixed case text searches  (Chris Campbell <ccampbell@cascadeds.com>)
Responses Re: Mixed case text searches  (Chris Campbell <ccampbell@cascadeds.com>)
List pgsql-novice
On 15 June 2010 16:25, Chris Campbell <ccampbell@cascadeds.com> wrote:

Hi list people.  Okay I’ve read the documentation.  Now it’s time to talk to people that actually do this for a living.  Mixed case searches, what is the best practice?

I’m searching for an account name:  Acme Rockets Inc.

 

strSearchString = ‘acme%’

Select * From Accounts Where AccountName = strSearchString

This will of course fail because the case doesn’t match.  So what is the best practice for performance?

 

I could use the Lower() function:

strSearchString = lower(‘acme%’)

Select * From Accounts Where lower(AccountName) = strSearchString

 

Or I could use the ilike operator

strSearchString = ‘acme%

Select * From Accounts Where AccountName ilike  strSearchString

 

It’s also been suggested that I keep a companion column that mirrors the account name column which is forced to lower case.  This seems, well a bit desperate to me.

 

So, from a performance standpoint, what are people doing and why?

 

Many thanks for your replies.

 

Chris Campbell

 

You might want citext (case-insensitive text): http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/static/citext.html

This means while the case is preserved when returning data, queries will match insensitively.  Also indexes will work as expected on them.  The alternative is to use lower() on every query and have a function index using lower().

Regards

Thom

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