Re: Academic question to online files or database to experienced users/admins.

Ric wrote:
>
> In Oracle Doc (Oracle 8i Utilities Release 2 (8.1.6) A76955-02
> you find this to sentences, following directly one after the other:
> Start Doc:
> DBVERIFY is an external command-line utility that performs a physical
> data structure integrity check on an offline database.
> It can be used against backup files and online files (or pieces of
> files).
> End Doc.
>
> So what? I do not understand.
> Sentence One does say the database must be offline, doesn't it?
>
> Sentence Two says, the datafile can be online.
>
> Can a Data file be online with the Database beeing offline?
>
> Please give a clue or help me to interpret because a DBA here says
> this two
> sentences means that DBVERIFY is not a offline tool.
>
> Note that the header of the doc is:
>
> DBVERIFY: Offline Database Verification Utility.
>
> Thank you in advance

You can it against any datafile, but you may get errors if it is online (ie, in active use). Another semantic difference is that the database might be mounted, so the datafile *status* is ONLINE, but is not "active"

hth
connor

-- 
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Connor McDonald

http://www.oracledba.co.uk

"Some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the statue..."