Chapter 4, Administration describes how to prepare tables so that you can search in them for text. Before you do this preparation, however, you must decide to create either one text index that is common to all indexed text columns in a table, or several text indexes, one for each indexed text column.
Having a separate text index for each text column (a multi-index table) offers flexibility; you can create a different index type for each text column. This flexibility also applies to the other characteristics that are associated with a text column; that is, when its index is periodically updated, and in which directory the index is stored. See ENABLE TEXT COLUMN for a description of these characteristics. Indexing can be a time- and resource-consuming activity. By having a multi-index table, you can spread this activity over a period of time by indexing the columns at different times.
If you do not need the flexibility offered by a multi-index table, a common index makes Text Extender easier to maintain.
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If you intend to index external files (see Enabling external text files), the associated table must be a multi-index table. |