select a product info from DB without ID ?

[raduenea]

Hello,

 

I see in many eCommerce links something like:

http://www.exemple.com/laptops/acer-aspire-e1-571G/

 

So to show the product detail of the Acer the select is made by  this string in DB "acer-aspire-e1-571G" ?

As I know the select is made by ID for fast results.

 

Thank you.

[requinix]

The/an identifier for the record is "acer-aspire-e1-571G". If you think that you can only get "fast results" by searching on an ID number then you don't understand databases.

[raduenea]

Ok . What is the difference showing results for a table after search by id or a long string?

[requinix]

Indexes. IDs are typically primary keys which means they have unique indexes. You can put indexes on any column or combination of columns you want, so if you want to search based on a unique string key then put a unique index on that column. The only real limitation is that the index must be

[Psycho]

The "acer-aspire-e1-571G" is almost definitely not the "name" of the product, but is instead a unique code. So, the query is doing a search on a single column for a matching code.

[raduenea]

Thank you for your response. Now it's all clear.