Can a binary search be done in a database in SQL?

c# database search datareader
Jay picture Jay · Nov 24, 2009 · Viewed 11.1k times · Source

OK. I am using the C# programming language to access a simple database (on Microsoft SQL Server)

Currently, I am using the DataReader object to access the database. So here is my question: is it possible to do a binary search (in C#) for a particular piece of data so that i can make the search faster?

Currently, I'm using a simple while loop to search the contents of the database. I believe this is done sequentially. 

while (pReader.Read())
{
   if ((String)pReader["theData"] == "The_thing_im_searching_for")
   break;
}

So is there any way to do a binary search?

Answer

Donnie picture Donnie · Nov 24, 2009

If you're using a database anyways, you should write a select statement to search for what you're looking for instead of iterating through the database manually. There's no reason to reinvent the wheel.

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