Where can I find information about the pros and cons of Btree indexing on AREV 3.12 symbolics? I haven't found anything within the manuals or tech bulittens on what I'm looking for. I did find a couple of references when I did a search on this area of the online discussion but they weren't a very big help.

What I've been led to understand that generally it's not a good idea to index sybolics due to the lack of a flag to be tripped to update the related indexes. Espeically ones that pull data from other tables (in part or whole). I've been running across a goodly number of indexed symbolics within our tables. They don't seem to be causing a problem at the moment but if there is a better way of dealing with these or advoiding potential problems, I'd like to look into it now.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to find that information?

Thank You,

Michael Slack

It's OK to index a symbolic field as long as you can assure that when its value changes an index transaction is created. Any other explanation eventually boils down to this point.

Bearing that in mind, it becomes apparent that there is a problem when the symbolic field relates to data on another table. If you update the information on that table, and that update affects the result of the symbolic field, no transaction will be created because the system is not even looking at the symbolic field. Now, if you can someone force it to be created, you have the problem licked. I'm sure there are many ways to tackle the problem depending on your situation.

Victor was quite right in his answer.

We created a solution for the problem by using an MFS that takes

care of the transactions that are needed. In a centralized table we enter the indexfields that should be updated in a certain situation.

The MFS takes care of the rest.

If you want the details please send an email to Mecomp@xs4all.nl.

Best regards

Egbert Poell

Revelation consultant

Mecomp Automatisering

Eindhoven (Netherlands)

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