When to index and when not to use indexing?

[lawaid]

Is there a point of no return with the usefulness of field indexing? What if I just index every field -- I have done this in Orders and ended up with a 700MB database. Will I receive a speed hit from the sheer bloat of the file and having o to reindex a lot of fields that cancels out speed gains from indexing? If so, what is all the criteria I should use when deciding to index a field?

Thanks for your input.

[ernst]

Indexing speeds up the searching. So use it on fields that are regularly used in Find requests.

Ernst

[Vaughan]

I don't think there is a need to even consider the issue. The default setting is "index if required" so I let FMP work it out. I the field is used in a find or for a value list then it'll get indexed. If not then it doesn't need indexing, so it won't.