Daniel L. Miller schrieb am 29.12.2011 um 10:07 (-0800):

> Way back in my dark ages of programming (dBase III+) there was a
> concept of record recycling. This involved one or more methods of
> tracking deleted records - and then re-using those records. This was
> to avoid what dBase called the "pack" operation - which would be a
> subset of a Firebird sweep.
>
> Is there any reason for an application developer to implement such a
> strategy in their data access framework - or just let Firebird handle
> it?

From app developer to app developer, I'd say no:

There is no reason and, more importantly, no foothold for an app
developer to get at the physical layer of data storage when dealing
with a system the prime virtue of which is to isolate you from that
very layer to allow you to work at the logical layer instead.

(I trust the senior sys dev ladies and gentlemen on this list are
going to rein in any inaccuracies in this perception of mine.)

I've never worked with dBase but from what I've read [1] it also had
a query language that kept you at the logical level. How could you get
a hold on the physical level in dBase?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBase

--
Michael Ludwig