Limiting the Number of Records Returned by IDC

• Microsoft Internet Information Server versions 1.0 and 2.0

SYMPTOMS

When you use the Internet Information Server (IIS) Internet Database Connector (IDC) to query large databases, for example, a Microsoft SQL Server, a large amount of data may be returned causing the browser to hang for long periods of time.

CAUSE

If the query used is very general, a large number of records may be returned from the database. For example, Microsoft SQL Server can return up to 4 billion records from a single query. In most cases, this could be a large portion of the database. Various browsers will react differently because a large amount of data will be received.

WORKAROUND

To prevent browser overload, use the MaxRecords parameter in the .IDC file that you are using to make the database query. For example,

Datasource: Web SQL Username: sa MaxRecords: 100 Template: query.htx SQLStatement: +SELECT FirstName, LastName +FROM Guests ...

In this example, MaxRecords would limit the records returned to 100.