>ed,
> i was told PACK was a command not to use but instead to use copy/delete/rename but that opens up a whole new can of worms. i think i'll go with SET DELETED ON. i suppose it wouldn't hurt to have an index tag with a key of DELETED() so that sets won't have to be checked sequentially for marked records.

Yes, use SET DELETED ON, it's enough to have deleted records filtered out of user's view. DELETED() tag is helpful for query optimization.