BUG: Follow-up for pandas-dev#57608: check if metadata is sorted before search

Author: SofiaSM45

pandas/core/computation/pytables.py

@@ -239,8 +239,13 @@ def stringify(value):
             if conv_val not in metadata:
                 result = -1
             else:
-                # Find the index of the first match of conv_val in metadata
-                result = np.where(metadata == conv_val)[0][0]
+                # Check if metadata is sorted
+                if np.all(metadata[:-1] <= metadata[1:]):
+                    # If it is, use searchsorted for efficient lookup
+                    result = metadata.searchsorted(conv_val, side="left")
+                else:
+                    # Find the index of the first match of conv_val in metadata
+                    result = np.flatnonzero(metadata == conv_val)[0]
             return TermValue(result, result, "integer")
         elif kind == "integer":
             try: