[Fedora-directory-users] lookthrough vs. sizelimit

[Richard Megginson]

George Holbert wrote:
>> No. That'd be quite silly, wouldn't it ?
>
> Absolutely :), that's why I was curious.
> So correct me if this wrong, but sounds like either of the two can be 
> used to limit how much the server works on a search, but they each 
> take effect at a different part of the search algorithm.
> I still wonder why you'd choose one over the other to implement result 
> limits?  Seems kind of like a door with two knobs.  Maybe there's some 
> specific cases where one is preferable.
In general, lookthroughlimit is much stricter than sizelimit.

For example, let's say a user wants to do an unindexed search for 
(description=*something*).  Let's say that there are 5000 users and 1000 
users who have a description attribute that matches *something*.  The 
server will have to search through every entry in sequential 
(indeterminate) order to find matches.

If you set lookthroughlimit to be 1000, and set sizelimit to be 
unlimited, the server will look at up to 1000 entries looking for 
description=*something*.  Some of them may match, some of them may not, 
and the server will return 1000 or fewer entries (indeterminate).  The 
server is limited in the amount of work it performs searching through 
the database.

If you set sizelimit to be 1000, and set lookthroughlimit to be 
unlimited, the server could look at all 5000 user entries, until it 
finds 1000 entries which match, at which point it will terminate the 
search and return the 1000 entries to the user.
>
> Thanks again for the replies,
> -- George
>
>
> David Boreham wrote:
>> George Holbert wrote:
>>
>>>> The notion behind lookthrough limit is that the administrator
>>>> can dermine an upper bound for the amount of WORK that
>>>> the server will perform for a given client's search.
>>>
>>>
>>> That makes sense.
>>> Does this mean if a sizelimit (not lookthrough) is hit, the server 
>>> continues searching the database, even though it has already 
>>> returned error code 4 to the client?
>>
>> No. That'd be quite silly, wouldn't it ?
>>
>> It _might_ do a bunch of work up front to service a search
>> only to discover when sending entries back to the client that the
>> size limit is exceeded.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Fedora-directory-users mailing list
> Fedora-directory-users at redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-directory-users
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