Why is PCTUSED not used for index?

Dear all,

Quoting a book,
"...Finally, pctused is not used in index definitions. Since all items in an index must be in the right order for the index to work, Oracle must put an index entry into a block, no matter what. Thus, pctused is not used."

In my visulization of a block, if some data row or index entry is removed from a block, the upper part of data or index in the block moves down to fill the gap, thus moves closer to the pctused position. I don't why an index block behaves differently than a data block. Anyone explains this? Thanks in advance.

Dino Received on Tue Aug 14 2001 - 08:27:34 CDT