Re: cannot delete entry from spfile

Holger Baer <holger.baer_at_science-computing.de> wrote in message news:<cojv44$t70$1_at_news.BelWue.DE>...
> Joel Garry wrote:
> [...]
>
> > Of course, this made me curious as to what the docs say, so I went to
> > tahiti and searched the 9.2 set for "alter system reset" which gave
> > one hit, which didn't really clarify anything. OK, fine. I went to
> > the 10 set, which gave one hit, which was just a DataGuard error.
> > Sheesh, not so fine. I clicked on the Search tab, entered the same
> > phrase for the Internet search, same results. Then I noticed under
> > Master Index it had bright red letters "Goog Redirection Test"
> > followed by Referrer =
> > http://otn.oracle.com/pls/db10g/portal.portal_demo3?selected=1
> >
> > This page was not referred from Google
> >
> > Then I went to the Master Index HTML, and I couldn't find an ALTER
> > SYSTEM RESET. Hmmmm.
> >
> > http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B14117_01/server.101/b10759/statements_2013.htm#i2146449
> >
> > ought to be in the index somewhere. And the Database Reference ought
> > to describe it.
> >
> > jg
>
> It's of course in the SQL Reference, which is usually the first place
> I go looking if I'm unsure about a bit of syntax. Much faster than
> relying on any kind of search engine ;-)

Well, of course it is, but documentation is more than syntax - I was looking for what it had to say like hjr said. At minimum, I expect docs to link everything to the index and explain everything at least to a basic level of understanding. I'd prefer a deeper level of understanding, too, but I guess that's what education profit centers are for.

It can't be that hard to grep for labels to make an index. I seem to recall it in word processing software from decades ago.

>
> And now that you mention it: The 9.2 Docs (at least in the downloadable
> version that I was looking at) have a syntax diagram that indicates that
> the sid part is optional, whereas in the 10g docs it's clearly shown as
> required part of the syntax.

I would hope there would be a system for updating and correcting documentation, including what changes were made. Don't they have to do it anyways for change control? I'd think it wouldn't be that hard to leave a tag in so those things are only visible when desired in electronic formats - they already have code for figuring out where it is referred from, right?

My fear is a trend towards dumbing down the docs, especially if it is for unrealistic formatting rules or to promote a marketing agenda. They've been improving for so long we could become too complacent and let them deteriorate. It seems a lot of links in the docs just run around in circles rather than drilling down to more detailed info.

jg

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