Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 6-8. The Storage tab is where various behind-the-scenes field settings lurk. Here, you can
make a field Global so it has only one value for the whole table, or make it Repeating so it has sev-
eral values in each record. Many of these options are most useful when writing scripts (Chapter 11)
or for very advanced purposes.
Indexing
Since you're reading this topic, you're probably hoping FileMaker can help you search
through volumes of information faster than you could do it yourself, especially as your data-
base grows from a simple address book to a humongous mailing list. When you're looking
for the three people out of 50,000 whose birthday is February 29, FileMaker can find them in
an instant because it doesn't really look at the birthday field on each record one by one. In-
stead, it uses the field's
index
to skip straight to the appropriate records. It's similar to the
way you'd use a topic's index to go directly to the pages that mention the topic you're inter-
ested in, rather than skimming every single page in the topic.
