Re: server side sorting & paging?

[Jon Roberts <man@mentata.com>]

Kurt D. Zeilenga wrote:
> At 03:56 AM 4/22/2004, denis.havlik@t-mobile.at wrote:
> > Thus we need:
> > 1) Server Side Sorting 
>
> Feel free to submit a patch.

"Patch" just doesn't seem like the right word here ;)

> > 2) Paging. 
>
> 2.2 supports paged results.

In my mind, paged results are of limited value if the results aren't 
sorted. Retrieving entries n ... n+k of an arbitrarily ordered set is 
just not a requirement I've met. By the time I feel the need to start 
limiting results to save capacity, I start to think of size and 
lookthrough limits (I already like to constrain the attributes I ask 
for). I understand where the extension can still be important, but in my 
systems I lean towards giving users what they ask for regardless of how 
overwhelming. That works okay with sub-million entry databases and 
modern hardware.

Server or client side, entry sorting appears a daunting task because of 
the various LDAP syntax types. The current JLDAP comparator, for 
example, is limited to alphanumeric sorting by a given attribute's 
value. You'd have to write a different comparator for nearly each syntax 
*and* associate each sorting attribute with the appropriate one. I would 
expect a lot of that kind of logic already appears in the OpenLDAP code, 
but that doesn't mean I would expect the development team to make 
server-side sorting a high priority.

Just my 2c, since the issue was raised. I'm sure you'll let me know if 
I've got it all wrong.

Jon Roberts
www.mentata.com