There are other approaches to this like using DB_File or some kind of RDBMS but I actually think overall you will have a simpler and probably more efficient system if you just use some kind of approach to scale the data down. Splitting data into bite sized chunks is an ancient and honorable programming tradition. :-)
... and it's exactly how DBM (and therefore, indexes for RDBM too) do their jobs. What else do you think binary search, B-trees, Beta-trees etc. are, but splitting up the date in ever smaller chunks?

I don't think you'll be able to beat this kind of databases, in their own game.

In reply to Re(2): Bloom::Filter Usage by bart
in thread Bloom::Filter Usage by jreades

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.