Title: GemStone/S Indexed Collection Primer
Speaker: Dale Henrichs
Thu, August 21, 12:00pm – 12:30pm
Video Part1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvLFwJfn-uQ
Video Part2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd_b0k3732I
Abstract: GemStone/S indexes provide a way to locate specific objects in a collection by value. Indexing a Collection creates internal structures such as balanced trees (Btrees). Only a few message sends are needed to lookup a value or range of values in the indexing structures. When collections are indexed, they can return results without having to iterate the collection or send messages to each object.
In this talk Dale will provide a detailed overview of the capabilities of GemStone/S indexes.
Bio: Dale Henrichs has been working in Smalltalk since 1985 when he developed an internal application on the Tektronix 4404. The internal application was used at Tektronix for at least 25 years and may still be in use today! Since 1985 he has been lucky enough to work in Smalltalk nearly full-time, spending the last 15 years at GemStone give or take a couple of years.
2. Why Indexes?
Efficient Query Execution!
1.6M element population (8300 element result set):
3800ms - select block query
10ms - indexed query
3. GemStone/S
Indexes
!
• Indexes are built against UnorderedCollections
• Indexes are based on the instance variables of the
objects in the collection.
• Indexes are automatically updated when instance
variables are changed
• Indexes use B-trees for efficient equality-based lookup
8. Last ElementClass
• Expected class of last element in path term
• Any class that responds to comparison
messages (< > <= >= = ~=) can be used
• “Basic” Classes cache representative values in
B-tree and are restricted to #isKindOf:.
