>>To be honest, in this day and age, no-one should be using VFP for large tables anymore. I think it is a mistake to do this. Resources are better spend on improving other stuff (like GUI).
A while back I asked Chen whether header modification (so you can't just open the dbf in Excel) or encryption might be a better focus... but I think there are others who see more value in huge dbfs. Alternatively, perhaps it's as much for data munging/intermediate resultsets as for dbfs...
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1