> From the first look at the system tables and their relations the reason of this
> limit is related to the datatype SHORT of column RDB$RELATION_ID of table
> RDB$RELATIONS and other related columns from tables ("RDB$DATABASE",
> "RDB$FORMATS", "RDB$PAGES"). Also I noticed that relations between
> different internal DB objects (such as columns, tables, indexes) are based on
> the "Table Name" (RDB$RELATION_NAME), but not "Table ID"
> (RDB$RELATION_ID). Looks like the primary used of RELATION_ID is to
> identify the PAGE in the data file.
> Consider these thoughts it seems to be not such a big and complex task to
> change SHORT datatype to for example LONG for RELATION_ID column (and
> related to it source code) to increase the maximum number of tables.

Do you have an example of a case (real world example) where more than 16,380 (or is it 32,760) tables are required in a database?


Sean