Knowing Your Limits

Whenever you work with a piece of software, it's a good idea to be aware of the software's limits, both practical and theoretical. Important design considerations can hinge on a correct appraisal of the capabilities of your tools. If you need to build a system that can correctly work with dates prior to those in the AD era, it's a good idea to be aware of the storage capabilities of FileMaker's date field type, for example.

Some of these limits are more theoretical than practical, and you're better off observing the practical limits. We don't recommend you build systems with a million tables, for example, or write calculations containing 30K of text. If you feel you need to push these upper limits, you may want to recheck your assumptions and, if necessary, rethink your approach.

Table 2.1 provides the limits of some of the most important measurable capacities of the FileMaker product line.

Table 2.1. FileMaker Limits

Characteristic	Capacity
Maximum file size	8 terabytes
Maximum tables per file	1,000,0000
Maximum fields per table	256 million over the life of the file
Maximum number of fields in a handheld database (FileMaker Mobile)	50
Maximum records per file	64 quadrillion over the life of the file
Maximum records in a handheld database (FileMaker Mobile)	5,000
Maximum field name length	100 characters
Maximum table name length	100 characters
Maximum field comment length	30,000 characters
Maximum calculation text length	30,000 characters
Maximum custom function text length	30,000 characters
Maximum amount of data in a text field	2 gigabytes (about a billion Unicode characters)
Maximum amount of data in a text field in FileMaker Mobile	2,000 characters
Range of a number field	-10400 to -10-400 and 10-400 to 10400 (and 0 as well)
Precision of a number field	Up to 400 significant digits
Maximum amount of data in a number field in FileMaker Mobile	255 characters
Range of a date field	1/1/0001 12/31/4000
Range of a time field	1 2,147,483,647
Range of a timestamp field	1/1/0001 12:00:00 AM 12/31/4000 11:59:59.999999 PM
Size of data in a container field	4 gigabytes
Maximum size of data used for indexing	Up to 100 characters of data per word
Maximum files open in FileMaker client	Limited only by memory on the client computer
Maximum number of databases on a handheld device (FileMaker Mobile)	50
Maximum database files hosted by Filemaker client, peer-to-peer	10
Maximum connected FileMaker, Instant Web, or ODBC/JDBC clients, peer-to-peer	5
Maximum files hosted by FileMaker Server	125
Maximum connected FileMaker clients using FileMaker Server	250
Maximum Instant Web Publishing clients using FileMaker Server Advanced	100
Maximum ODBC/JDBC clients using FileMaker Server Advanced	50
Maximum RAM addressable by FileMaker Server	4 gigabytes
Maximum cache setting for FileMaker Server	800 megabytes
Maximum number of records in IWP table view	50
Maximum number of records in IWP list view	25
Maximum dimensions of a FileMaker layout	121 inchesx121 inches

Notes

• Unicode characters take up a variable number of bits, dependent on the character, so it's not possible to define a precise upper limit to the size of a text field.
• FileMaker Pro clients and ODBC/JDBC clients draw from the same pool of available connections on FileMaker Server/Server Advanced, so the upper limit is a total of 250 connected users of both types together. Of these, no more than 50 may be ODBC/JDBC users.