I wasn't making a direct comparison to how OE stores it's data versus the
auto-complete search routine, as I really have no idea how OE stores it's
data. I was thinking more logically, as if OE stores it's data in a flat,
unsorted text file with new entries appearing at the bottom, and when OE
queries the entries for the auto-complete routine it reads it from the top
down. And from my testing so far this definitely seems to be the case. My
most recent test was to create two entries: both with the first name "Test"
and Display Names of "Test 1" and "Test 2" (all other fields were blank).
When entering the word "test" into the To field, the entry that was created
first would be the first to be auto-completed.



....winston wrote:
Have you opened your address book *wab file in Notepad to compare it
with Autocomplete.
One should be able to see how each field is field of data is stored
and find a section for each category. The names are most likely
grouped together, email addresses, and so on. Since OE's address
book has less available columns(categories) than allowable
records(rows) storing a column of data is probably quicker than
storing rows.

I suspect that Autocomplete recall might function differently than
the Address book storage method.
..winston

"GO" wrote in message
...
I've just been playing around with the auto-complete and I may have
uncovered how it works. It appears that one (and primary) search
path is based on the age of the record/contact. That is, whatever
contact was created first will be the first to show up as the
auto-complete entry. Example: if I were to enter a contact "Bob
(work)" and then a second entry "Bob (home)", "Bob (work)" would
show up first when I start entering "Bob" in the To field. I'm
assuming this is a result of how the Address Book (.wab) file is
stored. They are probably stored like a text file with new entries
at the bottom and when OE needs to query the address list it starts
from the top down. I'm not 100% sure on this but it certainly
seems like the case. Can anyone confirm this?