Inserts and row chaining

Greetings all -

I posted this in comp.databases.oracle.misc, but I think it is more appropriate in this group. I apologize for the cross-posting.

I am aware of PCTFREE's function in regards to saving space for UPDATEs, but I am unable to determine via Oracle docs or O'Reilly's performance book what exactly happens with INSERTs.

A co-worker insists that Oracle just keeps inserting bytes until PCTFREE is reached, at which point it continues writing the row into another data block. I thought Oracle might check to see if the row could be INSERTed and, if not, take that block off the free list. Does it then attempt to find a less-populated block that can hold the entire row ? I realize with LONGs and LONG RAWs, it would never find such a case.

However, I would think that just inserting bytes until PCTFREE was reached (and then continuing in another block) would result in a ton of chained rows. What am I missing ? I performed a small test and my INSERT statements did not create any chained rows.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Brett Cunningham
zgeist_at_ee.net Received on Thu Jan 16 1997 - 00:00:00 CST