--- In ib-support@y..., Helen Borrie <helebor@d...> wrote:

> At 02:54 AM 17-06-01 +0200, you wrote:
> Indexes on small ("control") tables won't slow anything down, since

the tables are usually pretty static anyway and you are not going to
be performing huge bulk inserts or deletes to them. Some would say
that it's not worth indexing them but you are using IBO, which makes
good use of indexes.

>
> Making foreign keys on other tables that reference these small

tables will DEFINITELY slow things down - IB will form long duplicate
chains in the index tree of the mandatory index and wreck
performance. Instead, make composite indexes on such columns,
combining the lookup column + the primary key.

>

Hi Helen,

Nearly a year ago, when I was evaluating Firebird, you made the above
point about foreign keys. I'm going to review Firebird again and
wondered if the above advice still holds for Firebird 1.0.

(FYI I was very impressed with Firebird last time, it was issues with
accessing Firebird from Python that stopped me from adopting Firebird
at the time)

Regards,

Ray Drew