Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Development:
Progress Dynamics Basic Development

Reduce field numbers

A tables with too many fields can cause some of the same problems seen with array fields:

Excessive record length.
Inefficient data access.
Overflow of statement limits in the standard temp-table and a standard query created by the framework to manage the data.

You can break up a large number of related fields into logical subgroups that often are more efficient to handle. How many fields are too much is hard to pinpoint, but even a hundred fields in a single table can cause problems. If there is a subgroup of fields that might be optional for a particular master record, it is better to place them on a separate table. Rather than having empty elements in an over-large master record, you can simplify the database by not defining a record for these fields when they are not used. Grouping fields in this way makes managing the data easier. You can use the Progress SmartDataObject™ and the SmartBusinessObject™, the standard Progress Dynamics mechanisms for managing sets of related tables, to handle Adds, Deletes, and Updates on a one-to-zero-or-one basis to support such cases.