> --- In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, "Ivan Prenosil"
> <Ivan.Prenosil@...> wrote:
> >
> > Firebird will first use the index to create list of potentially
> matching records,
> > then it retrieves first 50 and stops, it will not read all rows
> internally.
> >
> It will not read all of the rows unless all of them match the query
> (which can happen sometimes with our situation). So then FB would
> read through millions when all we want is the first 50 it finds.
>
> When there is no ORDER BY clause it would be faster for FB to just
> return the first 50 that match. But it does not appear to work that
> way. And I have not been able to find a workaround.

as I say - the workaround is to use an order by clause. it's simple
Alan

>
> Thanks for your comments.