right 0 it is not wize to pack everytime This is why you either have to RECALL the delted record and recycle it (i.e. keep the key and reset all the data fields) or use a surrogate key, that is, make your keyso thta it has no relation to data, and just never use a deleted key again.. Arnon >But I can't possibly issue the PACK command everytime I delete a record, wouldn't it affect the performance when the table becomes huge?