DVLA computer database platform

Ah, so every query is a contract change request.

 

The voice of experience.
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| Pete Fisher at Home: |
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| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 |
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/me makes notes....

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Heh. I was bored this afternoon so I knocked up a bit of VFP9 code to
create a database table of typewriting monkey randomly generated
vehicles. Just two indexed 10 character fields, Make and VIN.

<checks progress>

17138036 records and counting towards my goal already even though I've
been pausing it and playing quite often. 30 million cars in the UK,
apparently. How many vans or HGVs and bikes do you reckon? VFP can go to
a billion records so I'll settle on 60 million before trying some
queries. Yes I know just a two field table and only one query by a
single user to be serviced isn't a fair test but it amuses me. It's not
often you see the 'Running query' progress bar pop up on VFP usually
thanks to 'Rushmore'.

It's quite fun to see what makes have been created purely randomly. The
magic 167 VIN prefix was always going to be well represented as cheated
and opted for numeric only VINS. Got loads of BMWs already and one
"Gile". I think there's a "Hond" and plenty of "Yam". I did mess up the
CHR() stuff on the first run though so "Suz..." and "MZ" will be under
represented.

"I'm mad, me."

--
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Aprilia Shiver Yamaha WR250Z/Supermoto "Old Gimmer's Hillclimber" |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

 

Stopped it at 45 million odd as the .dbf was approaching 1GB.

Transformed all the 5200 make= "GILccccccc" that had spontaneously been
created in to "GILERA". Could be not miles out given all the scooters.
Transformed a few tens of thousand vin = "16nnnnnnnn" in to
"167nnnnnnn". A cheat I agree as I suspect real VINS include all kinds
of alphanumerics and the odd * and -.

Ran the query:

SELECT COUNT(vin) FROM vehicles WHERE make = "GILERA" AND
SUBSTR(vin,1,3) = "167"

Took about 20 seconds. I'd like to say the answer was 42, but it was
actually 43, which is spooky, given my guess of less than 50 in the real
thing. VFP is clever, so if you repeat the same query with a slight
change in parameters it takes less than a second, Rushmore technology at
work I guess. A tougher test of looking for make= "Gccccccccc" AND vin =
"1nnnnnnnnn" took it all of 59 seconds returning a count of 150000 odd.


Not bad for just a P4 3.4 GHz processor with 1Gb of RAM and less room
for the swap file than it really should have.

OK, narked mode off and fun time over, stuff the DVLA.

I'll return to Joomla/Kunena forum setup.
--
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Aprilia Shiver Yamaha WR250Z/Supermoto "Old Gimmer's Hillclimber" |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+