Assuming a 400Kb file is read in 8K chunks (by underlying OS buffering), that's 25 reads on average; 50 worst case.

I'll also assuming that you are reading the file from the begining. Why not try doing a binary search and start in the middle? I'm not sure of big O notation for this, but it would reduce the number of searches if you stick with the flat file.

update: You could also divide up the file by frequency letters starting words in the language of choice (english?). Or, start the flat file with a listing of how many words start with a, b,.. then compare to search word and read x lines into file and maybe do a binary search if there are a lot of words that start with a particular letter.

In reply to Re: (dws)Re: Search Engines for Dummies by Danilo
in thread Search Engines for Dummies by hostile17

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