"James Fortune" <ja******@oakland.edu> wrote in message
news:a6*************************@posting.google.co m...
In order to get the records I want on a report I sometimes create a
SQL string for the RecordSource and sometimes supply the criteria
using the Filter Property. If I use the Filter Property rather than a
RecordSource returning just the values I want is there extra traffic
across the network to bring the unfiltered data to the front end?
I can't give you a definitive answer on this, but I have always thought that
was the case -- that the RecordSource determined what was retrieved and the
Filter determined which of those were displayed. I have observed enough
delay to be convinced on a split database on an older, slower network when
retrieving whole tables on Forms which could later be Filtered that it was
returning _more_ than a Query or SQL string that limited the records.
The caveat is this, unless the WHERE clause references an indexed field, it
will retrieve all the records anyway, because the selection is done on the
user's machine. If the data and the front-end are on the same machine, you
aren't going to see a significant difference unless you have a huge number
of records.
It is even more convincing when you have an Access client linked to tables
in a server database on a WAN, because the transmission of data across the
network is the major determination of performance in that case. Using SQL
with a WHERE clause allows the entire selection of records to be done on the
server.
Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP
