To Index or Not To Index

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dave Elliott
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Dave Elliott

For performance issues, is it a good or bad idea to index some or all of the
fields, and what is the criteria to or not to index?

Thanks,

Dave
 
For performance issues, is it a good or bad idea to index some or all of the
fields, and what is the criteria to or not to index?
Click to expand...

If a field is part of a relationship Access will automatically create
indexes. If you plan on joining on the field in a query, grouping on it,
or applying filter criteria against it, then it should be indexed.
 
Dave Elliott said:
For performance issues, is it a good or bad idea to index some or all
of the fields, and what is the criteria to or not to index?
Click to expand...

In principle, it's a good idea to index those fields that will
frequently be used in query criteria or for sorting. This can make an
enormous difference in query performance, if the table is large. You
don't necessarily want to index every conceivable field, though, because
(a) the indexes themselves can take up significant storage space, and
(b) maintaining each index takes extra time whenever records are added
or deleted, or the values of their indexed fields are changed.
 
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