>Can anyone tell me if you can compress a visual foxpro 5/6 datafile and still interact with it in real time. I have created 12 datafiles all around 2 gig in size but would like to make them into one file for searching. Is there maybe another operating system i could use instead of Windows?
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>I have seen several products similar but they must be written in C. They allow very quick searches to take place and are accessing the same amount of records but the file size is less than 2 gig.
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>I thought that Foxpro was the best language to use for minipulating data!
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>Anyone got any ideas
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>Regards
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>Gareth.

Gareth,

I don't think you'll find anything for this problem other than another product.

BUT, depending on the number/size of indexes, you might be able to leave them as they are and have a separate file containing their indexes (indexed here too) with a data field pointing to the actual table with the relevant data.

I've never been faced with doing this myself, but see no reason why it can't work provided that the relevant index fields can ALL fit within a 2gig table.

good luck

Jim Nelson