At 10:12 AM 4/8/00 -0500, you wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I am interested in learning how InterBase handles indexes. Up front, I

must say that I am ignorant about InterBase and how it does things so bear
with me.

>
>
>Is InterBase limited to 2^32-1 records in a table (i.e., 4 bytes for

record number)?

>

Actually fewer -- the number scheme isn't completely dense.

>What does the prefix length mean? The following snippet gives me a clue

but a straightforward definition would help me.

>

Assume the values abc, abd, abd, bcd

node 1: prefix 0, length 3, data "abc"
node 2: prefix 2, length 1, data "d"
node 3: prefix 3, length 0, data ""
node 4: prefix 0, length 3, data "bcd"

The prefix is the number of leading bytes inherited from the
previous node.

Jim Starkey