How to reduce SE .dat & .idx file sizes?

hiya, we're running informix SE version 7.X on AIX RS/6000. I have some development databases I want to trim the DB file sizes down on... deleteing old records does nothing to reduce the file sizes... I've read in the Faq: 6.8 Space reclamation In the good old days of SE, a table with a high level of activity (i.e. deletions/inserts) became riddled with old data row slots which were available for re-write, and the index began to look like swiss cheese. To correct this periodic unload/loads or cluster manipulation or ALTER TABLE (same as an unload/load but more user-friendly) were needed to keep index and data table efficiency at peak. [See section 8.1, part 3] BESIDES doing unload/loads with dbexport/dbschema are there other ways to reduce file sizes? Tried the "ALTER INDEX idxname TO CLUSTER; " suggestion in section 8.1, that didn't do it... WHAT'S THIS "ALTER TABLE (same as an unload/load but more user-friendly)" suggestion in the FAQ???? any other ideas/suggestions? thanks in advance!!! alan -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Alan W. Jurgensen - Full Compass Systems phone: (608) 831-7330 - email: alan@fullcompass.com +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+