When you create an indexed file, you also define its keys. For each indexed file:
- Define at least one key
- Define at least one component for each key
- For each component, specify a component length. This must be less than 1,016 bytes or the maximum record length, whichever is the smaller.
- For each component, specify a component offset, which must be less than 63,488 bytes or the minimum record length, whichever is the smaller.
In addition, you can optionally:
- Specify that a key is non-unique, that is, duplicate key values are allowed.
- Specify one or more additional keys, adding them before or after the current key. The first key in the list of keys in the Key Information dialog box is always the primary key.
- Specify one or more additional components, adding them before or after the current component.
- Delete a key or a component.
- Apply key compression.
- Define a particular key as a sparse key; that is, an index entry is not written for any record containing only the sparse character in the key.
