>Jim,
>
>I find all this very confusing/frustrating at times because I look at the results reported by Andrew and then I do some simple testing that gives the opposite results. Test was mytable with 37000+ records and no index tag on DELETED(). I ran SELECT * FROM mytable 3 times in FP2.5 DOS and VFP6 SP3 and FP2.5 results were 5.11, 3.95, and 4.39 seconds and VFP results were 1.14, 2.39, 1.55 seconds. I then added a tag on DELETED() (about 2000 records are deleted) and the results were FP2.5 0.05, 0.01, and 0.00 seconds and VFP 0.01, 0.00, 0.01 seconds
>
>So for this scenario I can say VFP is generally faster than FP2.5 and the DELETED() tag was a benefit to both. But, this obviously can't be a blanket statement because in some cases it has been reported as detrimental. So how are we to know when to use it and when not to?


Colin, are you working on a stand-alone machine? As long as you don't have to reload the Rushmore bit map, the tag on DELETED() will always help. This can be true also on a Network, so long as no workstation changes the table. In the real-world, most tables get changed fairly often. Thus a requery which is performed 15 minutes after the first query may well require reloading the NOT DELETED() bit map which in your case is about 35000 bits.

To Jim Nelson: Even before I read Colin's reply I was wondering whether the different results (deleted tag good, deleted tag bad) could be attributable to the difference between running on a stand-alone system and running on a network. This may seem too simplistic but sometimes the simple answer is the right one.

Peter