Compact and Repair

[PJFry]

I was trying to explain to a co-worker why they need to compact and repair a
database. The question came up as to why the space is not freed up by simply
deleting a table, I was not sure why that is. Any help?

Thanks!
PJ

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

Since data is added to different tables at different times, the table seldom
will be a contiguous block of the MDB file. To recover all those
non-contiguous blocks could take considerable time. The designers obviously
it was felt that it made more sense not to take the time each time a
deletion was done. You see how long a compact takes. Can you imagine having
to wait that long each time you deleted a row of data?

It's exactly the same as defragging your hard drive.