Re: Default names conventions for the pfile

On Tue, 30 Sep 2003 20:24:01 +1000, "Howard J. Rogers" <howardjr2000_at_yahoo.com.au> wrote:

Yes, you answered exactly what I was looking for i.e the order of search"

all of them in the oracle_home\database folder

specific spfile
generic spfile
specific pfile
generic pfile

If when I create a new oracle service using oradim and I specify the pfile location like this:

oradim -NEW -SID db -STARTMODE a -PFILE
c:\oracle\admin\db\pfile\initdb.ora

Will it become the default location? Every time I do this, registry entries are created in
hkey_local_machine\software\oracle\home0\ORA_SID_PFILE which specifies the pfile location of that database.

Also, I if have several databases on the same server, you cannot use the generic init.ora. so I usually put the init.ora for each database in oracle_base\admin\db\pfile\initdb.ora

Thanks

>Peter wrote:
>
>> On a Windows system there a few default names for the initialization
>> file.
>>
>> The default location is
>> %ORACLE_BASE%\admin\db_name\pfile\initSID.ora
>>
>> But what is the order of search for the other default names for the
>> pfile?
>>
>> Where in the manual an I find the default naming conventions for the
>> pfile?
>>
>> Thanks
>
>
>You can't actually have more than one default for anything, because that's
>what a default is... the, er, default. So I'm not really sure I understand
>your question.
>
>But here goes for nothing. The true default location for the init.ora is in
>ORACLE_HOME\database. (ORACLE_HOME/dbs on Unix/Linux). The default name for
>the init.ora is initSID.ora. If Oracle can't find an initSID.ora in the
>O_H\database directory, it looks for a non-SID-specific version in the same
>place (ie, init.ora). If it can't find that, then the instance won't start.
>
>In 9i, you can have a binary version of the init.ora, called an spfile. The
>default location for that is again O_H\database. You can have an spfile
>that is sid-specific (spfileSID.ora) or generic (spfile.ora). Oracle looks
>to find a sid-specific one first, and then a generic one if that can't be
>found.
>
>When you have both an init.ora and an spfile, then Oracle looks for a
>sid-specific spfile first, then a generic spfile, then a sid-specific
>init.ora and failing everything else, a generic init.ora. And all that
>searching is done purely in the O_H\database directory.
>
>If you wish for the init.ora, sid-specific or generic, to be housed in some
>place other than O_H\database (which is what the database creation
>assistant does by default, and hence your suggestion that the default is
>ORACLE_BASE\admin\<sid>\pfile), then you can by all means leave it there,
>provided an init.ora is left behind in the true default location which
>itself contains a pointer to the 'real thing'. YOu do that by having a
>sid-specific init.ora which contains the one line
>'PFILE=\blah\blah\whatever_name_you_like'). At startup, Oracle finds the
>default init.ora in the default location, which then tells it where to find
>the real thing containing all the parameters.
>
>Or you can simply re-direct Oracle to the real thing in real time, at
>startup, using the command 'startup pfile=\blah\blah\whatever.ora'.
>
>If you wish for the *spfile*, sid-specific or generic, to be housed in some
>other place than its true default, then you have to nevertheless leave
>behind a sid-specific init.ora which contains one line
>'SPFILE=/blah/blah/name_of_spfile'. You can't direct Oracle to the
>non-default location for the spfile at run-time (ie, the command 'startup
>spfile=...' is not legal, and will produce an error).
>
>In Linux/Unix, you can achieve the same re-pointing to the odd location of
>your init.ora or the spfile by the same means if you like, or by the use of
>symbolic links. That is, you create a link in ORACLE_HOME/dbs which
>references wherever you've placed the real files. But symbolic links don't
>exist in Windows natively, and shortcuts (which I guess are the closest
>thing we have to symbolic links in Windows) don't always work.
>
>Does that answer the question??
>
>Regards
>HJR
Received on Wed Oct 01 2003 - 14:49:04 CDT