On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 2:54 PM, Thomas Steinmaurer <ts@...> wrote:

> You can insert 1000 records per second for 300 million years until you
> reach the limit of a 64-bit integer.
>
>> My question still stands.
>
> Correct. Although I have no real case performance evidence, I think
> integers are more efficient index key storage and query performance wise.
>

In theory integers make better index keys because they are more susceptible
to prefix compression. An index key in Firebird throws away all the bytes
at the beginning that match the first bytes of the previous key, but preserves
everything else. So if you have a key with immutable parts, you'll get a better
index with the immutable parts first, the slowly changes parts next, and
the rapidly changing bits last.

Cheers,

Ann