Index
Search engine, Information retrieval
- Definition
- Make data available immediately that otherwise would require a scan.
This pattern collects documents, parses them and feeds the structured content into a data structure that is optimized for retrieval.
The purpose of storing an index is to optimize speed and performance in finding relevant documents for a search query. Without an index, the search engine would scan every document in the corpus, which would require considerable time and computing power.
Examples
- Search engines
When should you use it?
- If your user needs immediate access to information
Problems
- It can take a lot of space to index documents