Comparation b/w look-up list & rel. table look-up

[H.P.]

I wonder if anyone have tested the speed & storage comparation between look-up list and related table look-up in fm7 with over a thousand of records?

The problem is my database consists of many look-up such as look-ups for city, province, etc... The first approach is to use look-up value list, for each record, it will store the name of the city into each record. The second appraoch is to use related table (still through value list), filemaker will only need to store the ID of the city in the record.

From the relational DB perspective, the second approach will save the storage space because for each record, only the id is stored in each record. However, I afraid that it might be slower than the first approach because the database needs to look-up related tables for the value of the city and then display on the layout. Can someone help me clarify this point pls?

Thanks,

H.P.

[Wim Decorte]

Speed won't be an issue. The relational approach makes it a lot easier to maintain your data.

HTH

Wim

[H.P.]

Thanks Wim for the response. I was a little bit worry because most examples and samples from filemaker 7 uses look-up value list rather than look-up related tables