Re: What does maxquerylen in v$undostat really mean?

"Howard J. Rogers" <hjr_at_dizwell.com> wrote in message news:41bbf5a6$0$1082$afc38c87_at_news.optusnet.com.au... <snip>
>>>> After all, Howard had already stated it's missing in the 9i docco ...
>>>> and we already know that Oracle will not generally release updates (ie.
>>>> patches) to the software on OTN, instead waiting on the next public
>>>> release. Can't see why we'd expect anything different from the docco
>>>> which, like software, is subject to the possibility of bugs.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> It seems to me that the software issue is different from the
>>> documentation one, as evidenced by the fact that OTN itself talks about
>>> 'trial licenses' and 'evaluation purposes' and so on for the free
>>> software downloads, but makes no such qualification regarding the
>>> contents of tahiti.oracle.com.
>>>
>>
>> Quoting from
>> http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B10501_01/server.920/a96521/title.htm
>> "The information contained in this document is subject to change without
>> notice. If you find any problems in the documentation, please report them
>> to us in writing. Oracle Corporation does not warrant that this document
>> is error-free."
>>
>> Is that not sufficient qualification?
>>
>> LWIY/Hans

>
>
> I don't think we need start WWIII over this. No, it's not a sufficient 
> qualification. It's an invitation from the Corporation to get a 
> documentation error corrected (which is most welcome, of course). But that 
> is rather different from your original "they don't update the free 
> software downloads as patches are released, so why should we expect them 
> to do anything different with the documentation". The quotation you cite 
> itself indicates that we very much *should* expect something different.

My experience, by which I mean I have filed a bug, got it accepted and corrected, for documentation errors/omissions is that Oracle will only correct the *next* release of the documentation. At the time I was told, and believe for the reasons below, that this is Oracle Corp's policy. i.e. they do correct errors - but only at the next available opportunity; read release.

My reasons for believing this to be the policy are

1, it was there in writing in my tar and 2, it makes sense. You can't very well ask a customer what patchset of the 9.2 docs they read something in. I guess you could *require* all customers to use online docs - but that would be really unfriendly. An argument between support and a customer about what the manual says (as distinct from what it means) would be really unfortunate.

oh and by the way there is an exception, namely when a patchset changes documented behaviour, that change gets recorded in the readme for the patchset. For example the docs (http://tinyurl.com/6ky2y) for OPEN_CURSORS state "This parameter also constrains the size of the PL/SQL cursor cache which PL/SQL uses to avoid having to reparse as statements are reexecuted by a user" which is wrong from 9205 onwards and so noted in the patchset notes "Starting with patch set 9.2.0.5.0, you can work around this issue by changing the initialization parameter that determines the upper bound for PL/SQL cursor caching from the OPEN_CURSORS parameter to the SESSION_CACHED_CURSORS parameter. "

I agree that the quote that Hans ends with suggests that the docs at tahiti *may* become more up to date than those on the physical media that customers get, I don't believe that in fact that is the case.

-- 
Niall Litchfield
Oracle DBA
http://www.niall.litchfield.dial.pipex.com