>A long time ago, I developed a data entry system with VFP-5-DOS. The indexes were so fragile that I had to reindex everything each time the user started the system and I added a global reindex facility for use when the indexes became corrupted during data entry.
>
>For most of the last decade, I've been using VFP as a data engine for data warehouse apps. Data uploads were so large that I routinely dropped the indexes, added new data and reindexed the tables. Therefore, index corruption was not an issue.
>
>I'm looking at a client that wants to develop a new n-tier app using VFP as the business tier and the data tier. The initial interface tier will be VFP, but the client wants to be able to add a web interface at a later date.
>
>I'm concerned about the fragility of VFP-9 indexes and am considering advising the client to move to a SQL Server data engine. For the size of the database, the app would be better served with the VFP engine, but my (ancient) experience makes me leary of VFP's indexes.
>
>Regards,
>Thom C.

Thom,

You are probably confusing it with FP 2.5 DOS. There never was a VFP 5 DOS version.
I do not have index problems. Had it only one time in an app many many years ago when a user did something stupid. I have apps handling millions of records and no index problems.

The issue is mostly due to app design and user training. Sure, a re-balancing of index files every now and then doesn't hurt, but emergency re-index due to corruption, should be very rare if at all.