Should i search content on database by id or name?

Question

I have a CMS that has two menthods to query contents. One that queries by id and another one queries by the name of the content.

ContentManager.Select(12);

or

ContentManager.Select("Content Name");

The way I see the first one would be faster, because the id is an index and doesn't invlove string comparison. While the second one is much easier to work with.

I have worked, for mainatance reasons, with the second one. But if i change the content name, the Select obviously is not going to work anymore. But the Id is supposed to be only o database level, and not visible from the CMS forms.

Edit:Also, if a content were to be deleted and reinserted the string select would work and the id select wouldn't.

I can't come to a common point between this two approachs.

Thank you

Answer 1

Selecting by the primary key gives best possible performance, but that's not always your only motivation. You might be able to add an index to the content name column, depending on it's width and your read/write ration (and depending on how much control over the database you have, I suppose).

Verdict, if you have the id, select by the id, if you don't and it's not ruining your performance, don't sweat using the content name.

Answer 2

Depends on which one is indexed... So yes you are right, in this case use the ID... If there is a need to also search by name, add another index using the name..

Answer 3

IDs ususally work best in databases. However, you are at the mercy of the CMS, it might be storing both those in an array and using the same exact select statement. Who knows? view the source code and see what is going on.

whatever you do, stick to one style in all of your code.