Algorithm Question

[George Sakkis]

Andrew McLean wrote:

> Now I want to issue a series of queries, such that when I combine all
> the data returned I have accessed all the records in the database.
> However, I want to minimise the total number of queries and also want to
> keep the number of records returned by more than one query small.

The first requirement makes sense, but what's the reason for the second
one ? In any case, as you realized the problem is not well defined. For
example, what's better:
a) 2 queries each covering 2/3 of the total records (say R) whose
overlap is 1/3*R, or
b) 4 queries each covering 1/4*R with zero overlap ?

George