Hi Al,

I've read the threads you're (I think) referring to. The 'discussion' I'm now seeking is whether or not users should be instructed to 'reindex' regularly, for performance reasons. That was not the core of the discussions in the threads I've read. If it was in the thread you're referring to, then I'd appreciate a link.

I wonder whether reindex gives better 'balanced tree structures' and 'physical disk clusters'. Who knows?

>>Hi David,
>>
>>In an old thread you say:
>>
>>"CDX bloat is something that affects performance. Routine reindexing is prudent for tables that undergo lots of adds and deletes."
>>
>>Are you suggesting that a reindexing routine (or a 'delete tag all' followed by various 'index on' commands) should be part of any application that handles tables that have a lot of records added and deleted?
>>
>>My hunch is that there's no gain at all. I'm talking now about vfp7sp1. Addition of records will not over-inflate the cdx. And deletion of records will neither inflate nor shrink the cdx. Purging the deleted records with PACK also implies a REINDEX.
>
>IIRC this was discussed at length some time ago and yes, .CDX size doesn't vary as much as it used to. However, theoretically a reindex might let VFP better balance any tree structure in the index, and/or arrange physical disk clusters for higher performance. I don't know if VFP actually does any of this.