> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: firebird-support@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:firebird-support@yahoogroups.com] Im Auftrag von brianasap
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 28. April 2005 05:21
> An: firebird-support@yahoogroups.com
> Betreff: [firebird-support] Arrays
>
> I'm just starting to evaluate Firebird for use with Delphi.
>
> How good is the implementation of arrays.
>
> Ideally, I would like the ability to have arrays of variable
> unlimited length, of any data type, including (but net
> essentially) records or structurs.
> The ability to define the sequence in some way is essential.
> Internally, I would prefer implmentation as a
> Database-maintained child table, but as long as it works, its
> not really important.
>
> TIA
> Brian
>

RDBMS are made to bring exactly this functionality, but without using arrays at all. If you have multiple infos for one records, simply create a second table and link that via FK to the first one. RDBMS are not supposed to store binaray/array object information. Thats what OO-Databases are for.

Arrays are only used for small, fixed-length sequences of similar infos, for which a second table would be overkill. Example:
You have a thermometer which writes the temperature each and every hour. You want one row in the database for each day of measurement. Instead of defining Temp1 till Temp24 as columns, you simply create one column as an array of int's with size 24 (pseudo: int Temperatures[24]). However, it is a *single datatype*, and *fixed length*.


Cheers