File size

[didier]

Hi Stan!

My concern today: All iCash files I created recently take a lot more space than the ones created long ago.

My main (older) file contains 21000 transactions (!), 326 accounts and 24 categories and weights 16MB (compressed is 4MB) and I still use it every day without any noticeable increase in size.

A new file I started few months ago contains 216 transactions, 56 accounts and 12 categories weights 24MB (compressed is 127KB)

The thing is that there is a lot of traffic, versioning and backup involved when one uses Dropbox (or similar) to share these files. And a 24MB file starts slowing down the whole process.

Is there a way - or rules - to get the smaller file as possible?
(latest iCash version on MAC OS 10.9.5)

 

[stanbusk]

You can't do nothing actually. This change is due to the document block size. Current one is better because it is faster and files can contains much more records.

 

[didier]

Understood. So would it be advisable to convert the old format to the new one to gain speed? if yes, how to do it?

 

[stanbusk]

If you plan to continue adding transactions, yes. That can be done using the 'File > Tools > Recover Database' from the iCash File Manager.

 

[didier]

Did this: My new " - recovered" file is 2MB smaller than before! (14MB instead of 16MB) with still 21000 transactions. Did I do something wrong?

 

[stanbusk]

That can be caused by indexes, try to reindex the new file and see.

 

[didier]

Strangely enough reindexing doesn't change the size. And if I optimise it I even get a slighter smaller file at 14MB. So I guess the new format is still not implemented for this file.

 

[stanbusk]

It is possible. Note that iCash files are SQL databases, data and indexes. Previously an empty file was smaller that current ones, because of block/segment size.