Re: Deletes - and compression of data files

Jack Parker writes: >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. > >Is this also true of Online? Or does Online do this automagically? OnLine has assorted "reclamation" stuff that it does, so that you should not wind up with a "swiss cheese" situation (reuse of freed pages, page compression, etc.). What OnLine will NOT do is return pages allocated to an extent (or an empty extent, for that matter) back to the dbspace. Once an extent has been allocated to a able, it will always be allocated to that table (unless, of course, you drop or alter the table). Dave -- Disclaimer: These opinions are not those of Informix Software, Inc. ************************************************************************** "I look back with some satisfaction on what an idiot I was when I was 25, but when I do that, I'm assuming I'm no longer an idiot." - Andy Rooney