So far, the goal has been to figure out what to index and whether to blindly apply an index on this column or on a group of columns. There is one assumption, however, that we have silently accepted to make this work. Up until now, we have worked on the assumption that the order in which the data has to be sorted is a somewhat fixed constant. In reality, this assumption might not hold true. Sure, numbers will always be in the same order, but other kinds of data will most likely not have a predefined, fixed sort order.
To prove my point, I have compiled a real-world example. Take a look at the following two records:
1118 09 08 78 2345 01 05 77
My question now is, are these two rows ordered properly? They might be, because one comes before another. However, this is wrong because these two rows do have some hidden semantics. What you see here are two Austrian social security numbers. 09 08 78 actually means August 9, 1978, and 01 05 77 actually means May 1,...
