Most Omnidex applications reference a single Omnidex environment, and that Omnidex environment represents one or more underlying databases. Sometimes applications need to access data outside of the Omnidex environment, such as connecting to additional tables or even additional databases. This can be done by attaching tables and databases to the current environment.
There are many uses for attaching tables and database. Omnidex queries can reference any of the tables in the connected environment, as well as those tables and databases that have been attached to the environment. This greatly expands the scope of queries that are possible. Attached databases can also have Omnidex indexing, allowing the query to be optimized using Omnidex indexes from all databases.
Some applications receive data from their users which is to be applied as search criteria. With Omnidex, this search criteria can be applied using two methods. If the data is simple, such as a file of customer numbers or zipcodes, then these can be easily referenced using Omnidex Segments. If the data is more complex and contains multiple columns or multiple tables, then these can be referenced as attached tables or databases.
Some applications retain the result sets of searches performed against their databases. These results sets can be as simple as a file of customer numbers, or they can be more complex with multiple columns. If the result set is simple, it can be stored as a permanent Omnidex Segment; however, if the result set is complex, applications can export it to a small, indexed Omnidex database. This database can be attached in later queries to provide services like order suppression or statistical analysis.
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