Yes: it would make sense to index the date field if you need to use it like
that, particularly with 80k records.

--
Allen Browne - Microsoft MVP. Perth, Western Australia
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"Petr Danes" wrote in message
...
I have a table of stuff stored in a repository and an attached table of
inventory dates, linked one-to-many by an Autonumber ID field. I regularly
need to find the oldest or newest inventory dates (or all, in order by
date) for each item record in the inventory table, which is normally an
automatic case for indexing. But this stuff is not inventoried very often,
so far, only two out of over 80,000 records have three records in the
inventory table, all others have zero, one or two inventory records. This
is NOT going to change. It will likely be decades before there are as many
as ten inventory records for any item record, and then it will not be for
very many. I doubt if this database will live to see the day, although I'm
trying to make it as useful and robust as I can.

Given such a small number of detail (inventory) records per item record,
does it make any sense to create an index on the date field? I only need
to look up records in conjunction with the master item record, never by
date alone.