At 01:34 AM 10/07/2003 +0000, you wrote:

>I'm not sure if other people have seen this weblog before:
>
>http://php.weblogs.com/oracle_mysql_performance
>
>Since it was mostly about comparing MySQL and Oracle, it was nice to see
>that Firebird was also included and that it was outperforming Oracle and
>was very close behind MySQL in cases (in the tests conducted on Windows 2000.)
>
>One can make of these figures what one will... it is only a
>weblog. However, I'm just wondering what he is talking about when he
>refers to 'bind variables' and performance in Firebird. Are these just a
>PHP thing? I've searched the docs and this group and cannot find any
>reference to 'bind variables'.

Here:
"Using bind variables is actually faster than sending straight SQL in
Oracle (formerly I said it was six times slower, but I found a bug in my
benchmark - turns out I was commiting on every insert)."

He is talking about parameterised queries. With Firebird, you can make a
statement like this:

SELECT <COLUMN-LIST> FROM ATABLE
...WHATEVER WHATEVER
WHERE ACOLUMN = ? (or :aColumn, or whatever is applicable in the dev.
environment)
AND BCOLUMN = ?

(various syntaxes, depending on how the connectivity software implements
params)

You prepare this query once and, thereafter, fire it off as many times as
you need to with a fresh set of parameter values, with minimal "transport
cost".

For example, in Delphi, applying new values to parameters is as simple as

ParamByName('AColumn').AsInteger := SomeInteger;
ParamByName('BColumn').AsString := SomeStringVar;

Respecifying the VALUES for the parameters doesn't require re-preparing.

Re-applying the entire query spec for each request is a very costly and
unnecessary expense - on the client, on the wire and on the server.

heLen