Thanks Sorin for the reply,

I am definitely not using Approach 2. As for 1, I still wait and see.

Dawa
>Approach 1 is definitely faster. And it is probably the fastest in your case using the index on the interger field.
>Approach 2 must go through every record and calculate the max before it can return a result. Approach 1 would simply read the last record in the index, go to it and retrieve the value from the table.
>
>
>>Hi All,
>>
>>I have a table with an integer field indexed ascending. To retrieve the maximum value of that field, which is the faster approach below:
>>
>>Approach 1:
>>

>>USE mydb!table1 IN 0 ORDER field1
>>GO BOTTOM
>>m.lnMax = table1.field1
>>USE IN table1
>>

>>
>>Approach 2:
>>

>>USE mydb!table1 IN 0 ORDER field1
>>CALCULATE MAX(table1.field1) TO m.lnMax
>>USE IN table1
>>

>>
>>If one is faster the other, then why?
>>
>>Any response will be appreciated greatly!
>>
>>Dawa