Network traffic is definitely reduced with client/server. Even though it's true that FoxPro doesn't have to bring the entire table over the network, it does bring much or all of the index over. With CS, only the results of the query move over the network. If your network is very fast, you may get better performance with FoxPro. This is because with FoxPro the processing is distributed. With CS, you can experience a performance bottleneck with the server if you have several people querying at once. With FoxPro, a slow network (especially a WAN) will cause problems.
There are many other advantages to CS other than reduced network traffic. Security, data integrity, and several others that aren't popping into my head right now.
>>>So, if I were to need to retrieve a single record, and it sits on another machine, how would I do it?
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>>>Joe
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>>Actually, we are speaking now about internal Fox processing. I'm not expert here (it would be better to ask someone from MS Fox team). However, the basics is following: if Fox wants to get particular record it takes record offset (all Fox records are of the same length) go to the record and take it. I guess that it travels through the network as part of network packet (again I don't know much here).
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>Right, it uses the index file this way.
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>>Surely, a record doesn't sit on another machine. The idea is that any time a user changes a record then all local buffers should be refreshed (again internally) and this is exactly the place when network limitation can fire.
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>Is that a typo? A record can sit on another machine (the server). I am not sure what you mean, but if tables are on another machine, so are all the records. (??)
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>>From practical side: I have LAN/WAN system with 10 million records, 1.5 GB and it still fast.
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>It depends on the application. There are situations where VFP would not be practical with millions of records (except as a C/S front end).
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>>P.S. I have strong suspicion :) that I could say something wrong about Fox internal things and I would really appreciate someone else comments here.
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>I am also curious. If network traffic is not reduced by C/S, what is the advantage?
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>Joe
