Just adding to Lesters comment. Unless there is some open transaction
preventing the OAT to move on, FB will reuse allocated space. I.e. if you
do add records so that your database grows from 5 to 50 Mb and then delete
them, the database will not shrink back to 5 Mb, but the 45 Mb will be
reused for your next insert.

If there is any open transaction, reusing space is not possible and the
size will continue to increase for every insert. Hence, always make sure to
avoid transactions running for a long time.

Set

At 15:36 01.12.2002 +0100, you wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>My Firebird database file size increases heavily although I just store
>records temporarily. Each 58 seconds two tables are filled and emtyed
>afterwards plurally. In my tests, amount and size of data is always exactly
>the same. The only way to squeeze it, is backup and restore using gbak. But
>gbak -r needs a closed database and my app. must run 24/7. Tables are
>accessed by IBO's Table component. Is there any workaround?
>
>Thanks in advance
>Arno Garrels