History.dbf programming question

[ekkas2]

Hello,
here's a question for QBik programmers...
If I use history.dbf to record bandwidth usage per ip of my clients and I delete the records as I periodically parse them, I see that the dbf file size just keeps on growing, a 'limitation' of FoxPro db's....
BUT:When the file get purged on file size limit, does it pack the file or simply empties the whole file?

Very important for me as I do not want to lose any data and if the file get packed before it test for file size limit, I should be fine as most records would have been deleted by then and the file will be a (mostly) empty DB and therefore any unparsed records would remain there waiting for me...

QBik, Please respond

Thanks
Ekkas

[adrien]

I think it gets emptied completely on purge.

Adrien

[genie]

DBF files are not re-written when a record is removed - a record is just marked as being delete. The size of the DB file goes down only when you purge these deleted records.