Memo fields... Should I Avoid at all costs ????

[jeep2001]

I stumbled onto an Access site where I read something about do's and don't do's....One of the issues was to avoid at all costs -- memo fields that they can bring down a database? I never heard that one, but what kind of havoc can they reek? I am about to do an update to one of my databases and one of the changes was to make 2 fields MEMO from text....

Should I avoid the memo fields if I can????

 

[Golom]

Memo fields cannot be indexed and they cannot participate in relations. They cannot be used in SQL JOIN ON conditions. There are also significant possible problems when you attempt to INSERT or UPDATE memo fields (usually truncation if you don't do it right). The presence of a memo field in a table (or worse, several of them) can drag your performance down.

The essence of the problem is that memo fields are not "in" the table. They are stored elsewhere and the table contains only a pointer to them. Because of that, most SQL that works on other fields doesn't work on Memos because SQL doesn't understand pointers.

"Avoid at ALL costs ???"

That's a business call but be prepared to deal with issues like the above.

 

[dhookom]

I have created lots of applications with 1,000s of tables. I haven't had issues with memo fields. You need to be careful how you use them. Normalization really helps as well as good network connections.

Duane MS Access MVP
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[JoeAtWork]

I don't think you need to "avoid them at all costs". Sometimes they are the right solution, just don't use them if a text field up to 255 characters will do.