MySQL快速搜索varchar列中的匹配项

Question

I am relatively new to sql, so it's possible I'm doing something stupid.

Anyway, I have a Dictionary table with a VARCHAR(255) word column. I have loaded a dictionary text file into this table. What is the most effective way to check if some VARCHAR(255) is in the dictionary? Currently I am doing this:

CREATE TABLE Dictionary
(
word CHAR(255) NOT NULL UNIQUE
);

LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE 'E:/dictionary.txt'
INTO TABLE Dictionary
LINES TERMINATED BY '\n'
(word);

In a procedure, I'm doing

DECLARE currentWord VARCHAR(255);
...
IF EXISTS(SELECT word FROM Dictionary WHERE word=currentWord) THEN
...

This is taking quite a while. What should I do differently to speed this up?

Answer 1

Add a key on the word field as Satya mentioned. Here's the syntax:

ALTER TABLE Dictionary ADD KEY `word` (`word`);