Re: spfile vs pfile in 9i

From: Howard J. Rogers <hjr_at_dizwell.com>
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 18:24:26 +1000
Message-Id: <417a152f$0$14205$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>

Howard J. Rogers wrote:

> Fabrizio wrote:
> 
>> 
>> 
>> Richard Stanton wrote:

>>> Hello
>>>
>>> can anyone explain to me what the advantages of using spfiles are over
>>> the traditional pfiles? Is it just the ability to make changes to the
>>> database on the fly without editing files etc?
>>>
>>> Also, why are there so many pfiles created for each database in 9i,
>>> and what do they all do?
>>>
>>> I have a test database and the following pfiles have been created for
>>> it:
>>>
>>> oracle\ora92\database\inittest.ora
>>> oracle\ora92\sysman\ifiles\def_TEST.domain.co.UK.ora
>>> oracle\admin\test\pfile\init.ora
>>>
>>> and this spfile:
>>>
>>> oracle\ora92\database\spfiletest.ora
>>>
>>> thanks for your help
>>>
>>> Richard

>> 
>> 
>> In a spfile I miss the old-fashioned comments who could be added in a
>> pfile. :(
> 
> First, comments should never be in the init.ora. They make it extremely
> hard to read, and I well recall the 33-page one I had to wade through not
> a million years ago: every damn parameter preceeded by comments such as
> "I, Fred, was authorised by Wilma to increase the shared pool to 160MB.
> This was because of blah-de-blah-de-blah". You could never tell whether a
> line in the file was actually setting something or was merely the start of
> another essay on the meaning of life as seen by Fred.
> 
> Yuk, yuk, yuk. The init.ora should be short, sharp and functional. Keep
> change management (and change history) out of it.
> 
> Second, you can of course add comments into the spfile (each new comment
> over-writing the last for any given parameter).
> 
> alter system set shared_pool_size=80M comment='I, Fred, am a wally'
> scope=spfile sid='*';
> 
> Regards
> HJR

Oh, and I meant to add: the comments are then visible in the UPDATE_COMMENT column of v$spparameter.

Regards
HJR Received on Sat Oct 23 2004 - 03:24:26 CDT