How much bloat is normal for an Access dbase?

S

Sandie

I guess it probably depends on the size of the database to begin with but I'm
trying to figure at what point I should be concerned and make changes? Is
there a guideline or is it just normal and I should just resolve it by
compacting more frequently? Wouldn't excessive bloating signal something
else being wrong (ineffecient code, etc?)
 
J

John Vinson

I guess it probably depends on the size of the database to begin with but I'm
trying to figure at what point I should be concerned and make changes? Is
there a guideline or is it just normal and I should just resolve it by
compacting more frequently? Wouldn't excessive bloating signal something
else being wrong (ineffecient code, etc?)
Click to expand...

All of the above can apply. Some common bloat issues are: including
graphical images in the database (whether on forms or reports, or
within table fields) - Access is horribly inefficient at handling
graphics; excessive use of temporary tables, or temporary-use tables
(e.g. appending data into a table and then deleting the records);
running very large queries, especially without indexing on the join or
sort fields.

My rough rule of thumb is to compact whenever the database has
doubled. If I'm doing heavy forms/reports/program development I'll
fairly often create a new empty database and Import everything - this
clears out some junk that the compaction utility seems to miss.

John W. Vinson[MVP]
 
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