DBF size limits

[subroto]

Re: DBF size limits

That makes sense to me... Separate the fields...Reduce record size per table....Thanks

[DaveM]

Re: DBF size limits

I guess I can separate between brands or types like dumptrucks and non dumptrucks like that.. I'll see to do that when the fleet pass 100... right now we only manage 50...

Not really what I meant. I take a table and put in 200 fields and it grows fast. If I split that table into 2 I have 100 fields in each. split it to 4 and i have 50 fields each.

Explain: I can(in my big app)combine buyer, co-buyer, deal, purchase info in one table. That is about 340 fields. I have seperated it so I have buyer and cobuyer in one(120 fields), deal(120 fields) and purchased(100 fields). These are connectect via a set on a numeric field that is in each table. I do not split different people into different tables. That becomes a hassle.

Explain2: all your trucks and base info in one table, all other information about trucks in another table connected in a set that uses 1 field to connect the 2 tables 1 to 1. That way the set sees all the information as one record. Make a form(S) on the set and reports can be also made on the set. You can don maintenance/repairs in a 3rd table as a one to many if you need 1 to many.

Hope this helped.

[subroto]

Re: DBF size limits

I was going to do that.. the subtraction thing.. when I noticed that alpha tells you at the bottom (in v8, don't know where it would be in other versions) what the record size is. It's all there, so there is no need for any subtractions..

Funny thing about alpha is i kept finding I did things the hard way... I saw that record size number before but my table was unpacked so I didnt notice why 117 added up to 17,998 for mere 5 records....Do you find what I find here ? If i subtract manually it's 1 + the record size... 118 vs 117 in my case that 1 byte difference means 150,000 records...

Thanks for the tip GabrielG I dont think my application is going to be on the same scale as yours any time soon... Unless our company is making it in fortune 500 we may not even hit 2 million records in 3 years...

This may be way off base, so disregard if it is not immediatelly helpful.

The only time I've come close to hitting the DBF limit was when I had a corrupted memo file. You might check the file sizes of all the FPT files in your database. Are any approaching 2,000 megabytes? If so, that's almost certainly a sign that the memo file has become corrupted.

-- tom

Thanks for the heads up Tom Cone Jr... No memofields yet...for now...hopefully never LOL....

If you believe you may hit that number, may I suggest you make to table of the one and connect them into a 2 table set with a 1 to 1 connection. That could about half the size of each record and you could go from about 17 mil to 34 mil. It is easier to do while the db is young and small than to wait.

Thanks for the heads up DaveM... I'm doing a table that records a fleet of heavy equipments' activities.. I guess I can separate between brands or types like dumptrucks and non dumptrucks like that.. I'll see to do that when the fleet pass 100... right now we only manage 50...

[DaveM]

Re: DBF size limits

That's around 17 million records when i hit the 2GB mark I guess it's good enough for my application for now..CMIIW

If you believe you may hit that number, may I suggest you make to table of the one and connect them into a 2 table set with a 1 to 1 connection. That could about half the size of each record and you could go from about 17 mil to 34 mil. It is easier to do while the db is young and small than to wait.

Just a thought.

[Tom Cone Jr]

Re: DBF size limits

This may be way off base, so disregard if it is not immediatelly helpful.

The only time I've come close to hitting the DBF limit was when I had a corrupted memo file. You might check the file sizes of all the FPT files in your database. Are any approaching 2,000 megabytes? If so, that's almost certainly a sign that the memo file has become corrupted.

-- tom

[G Gabriel]

Re: DBF size limits

looked at the properties noted the size and subtract that number with the previous size before i added the record and i get 118 byte per record..

I was going to do that.. the subtraction thing.. when I noticed that alpha tells you at the bottom (in v8, don't know where it would be in other versions) what the record size is. It's all there, so there is no need for any subtractions..

This whole thing got me to thinking..For someone like you and many others who might be pushing the limits of a db, it might be nice to, whenever you get close to your db limit, to issue a warning to the user: You have 10 more records to add, or something like that.. so you don't get in a situation where you get stopped dead in your tracks..
So, for example:
If your record size is, say, 150
Remember, alpha takes a few KB for the table design something like 500 Kb, a 1000 not a whole lot
Then you could subtract that little amount from 2 GB
Divide the remaining by the record size
That gives you the max number of records YOUR db could have
When you get close to that number, you start issuing the warning..

[subroto]

Re: DBF size limits

Thank you Gabriel G that's indeed the easiest way... I added a record.. looked at the properties noted the size and subtract that number with the previous size before i added the record and i get 118 byte per record... That's around 17 million records when i hit the 2GB mark I guess it's good enough for my application for now..CMIIW

[G Gabriel]

Re: DBF size limits

Divide the 2Gb by 19kb only yields 109.000 records

No..
It yields 113,025

19K is the max per record. For a smaller size records, the number of the records will be higher..could be in the millions..
Question: How can you tell how many KB is a record?
Answer: very easy.
Right click the table->properties.
P.S.
That last question I asked not knowing that you already asked the same question.. just figured you might want to know..

[Stan Mathews]

Re: DBF size limits

One way might be to get the record count of your table and then divide that into the size visible in windows explorer.
Another could be to use the .bytes_get() function on the table.

[subroto]

Re: DBF size limits

Ok... I see it now Thanks Stan Mathews...Is there any way to gauge how many bytes a record consume ?

[Stan Mathews]

Re: DBF size limits

Nothing says you can have 2 billion records and those records can be 19kb each. Those are separate constraints. The file size is 2gb, whether you have 2 billion 1 byte records or 109,000 19 kb records.

[subroto]

Re: DBF size limits

Hi can someone enlighten me here ? According to the spec sheet the number of records can be up to 2 billion but the size per record is 19kB so if the limit is 2GB.. Divide the 2Gb by 19kb only yields 109.000 records.. I'm not following here and i think i even saw posts records can go to 3 billion.. What gives ??

[Peter.Wayne]

Re: DBF size limits

You can also switch to a SQL back-end. I have a 21 GB table in MySQL -- contains approximately 100,000 documents. It's accessed via Alpha and Xbasic.

[Steve Workings]

Re: DBF size limits

That happened to me once when I wasn't paying attention to my structure and was just mindlessly appending (this, on a 486-DX2 mind you).

I revisited what I was doing and brought things back into a better-managed file. You might want to consider the same, or describe what you're doing if you need some suggestions.

There are few tables in this world that need to be that big.

[JimDK]

Re: DBF size limits

Thanks, it is 2GB limit i have reached.