[erlang-questions] What is the best type as key of mnesia table?

[Kyungho Yun]

I used _list_ as key of table.
Now I need more faster and lighter so I tested some.

Before I tested, I think that _atom_ is the fastest and smaller mnesia
files.
And I thought that _binary_ is the best candidate because _atom_ has issue
of garbage collection.

But test results make me confused.

Q0. What is the best type as key?

== test results ==

There are three candidates; list, binary and atom.

100k keys;
   list keys are   "k1000001"   ~   "k1100000",
 binary keys are <<"k1000001">> ~ <<"k1100000">>,
   atom keys are    k1000001    ~    k1100000.

I tested both mnesia types; disc_copy and disc_only_copy

Q1. Mnesia file sizes are strange, what's wrong?
- disc_copy
   size   table_type
  3100089 atom.DCD
  3300089 binary.DCD
  3100089 list.DCD
- disc_only_copy
   size   table_type
  5391992 list_o.DAT
  6489808 binary_o.DAT
  6130276 atom_o.DAT

  * Every key has same value.
  * checked the sizes after q().


  accoding to http://erlang.org/doc/efficiency_guide/advanced.html
    list : 1 word + 2 words * 8(length of a list) = 17 words
    binary : 3..6 + 8(length of a list) = 11 ~ 14 words
    atom : 1 word
    so I thought the size order will list > binary >> atom.

Q2. Why atom is not fastest? atom is sometimes the slowest.
  atom  read    :  61.095
  binary  read  :  65.729
  list  read    :  84.162

  atom  write   : 858.18
  binary  write : 913.092
  list  write   : 861.357

  atom_o  read    : 1657.427
  binary_o  read  : 1453.002
  list_o  read    : 1482.138

  atom_o  write   : 1765.436
  binary_o  write : 2261.9
  list_o  write   : 2289.084

  * read and write every tables(100k)
  * tried to avoid difference of period to get a key.
  * milli seconds

* I think that the best type is _integer_, but I want use one of them.

thanks.
/nanun
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