Sets

A set is a user-specified collection of records, possibly of different entity and link types. Entities and links can belong to more than one set, and you can use Set Membership to find out which sets a record belongs to.

You might want to use sets to:

• Keep entities that you found as the result of a query together as a group.

• Analyze only those records that were imported together.

• Define a group of records that you want to add to a chart.

• Group records together on a temporary basis; later you can analyze the set, or combine it with other sets to form new groupings.

• Analyze deleted records (only with Soft Delete).

You can create sets by:

• Adding records to an existing set or to a new one.

• Adding items on an Analyst's Notebook chart to an existing set or to a new one.

• Combining two sets to form a new one.

Sets are folder items that can be saved and stored in categories. A set does not store the details of the entities and links that it includes. When you select an entity or a link in a set, iBase displays its details from the current information in the database.

Notes:

• When you delete a set, you do not delete the records that it contains; you delete the definition of the set. iBase updates sets automatically when you delete records, but it does not delete an empty set when you delete the last record that it contains.

• You should delete sets that are no longer in use. An iBase database that contains a large number of sets can cause performance issues when using features such as Batch Edit.