The final step in index design is to validate the rule-to-index alignment. The best way to test alignment to run a manageable subset of the records without indexing, then run the same subset with the index. If the rules and indices are in alignment the results from both runs should be identical. Of course if all of the input records could be run in a manageable amount of time, there is no need to index in the first place, so validation is always carried out using a test set. This leave open the possibility that the validation may not extend to the entire input set because there is always the possibility that the records for which a misalignment occurs may not be present in the test set. As a matter of best practice, the test set should be selected in such a way that every match rules fires at least one time.

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