On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 3:00 PM, Leon Mlakar <leon@digiverse.si> wrote:

Therefore, my question really is:

Is it possible to provide an "unsafe_modify" function, which does the same as "modify" but does not trigger automatic re-indexing, and an "refresh_index" function, which (manually) triggers the re-indexing?

I second this idea. Hit the same issue not so long ago. Or event better, something like modify_range(<first>, <last>, <modifier>) that would automatically re-index after modifying entire range thus avoiding the danger of user forgetting to re-index.

If it takes <first>, <last>, it's not a range :) Joking apart, better to accept anything that range-for can accept, and use Boost.Range to adapt a pair of iterators into an actual range.

Yes, a modify_range() or bulk_modify() or insert_better_name() would be great.

But then you don't know which index needs to be rebuilt, so they must all be rebuilt.

So a new API to do this could additionally explicitly spell out which ones perhaps.

Although then nothing prevents other keys to be modified, breaking BMI invariants.

But I for one would be willing to accept the risk for the performance benefits. --DD

PS: The same applies to the current "scalar" modify I guess, which must update all indices too.