Re: SQL Server rowversion or timestamp equivalent in Oracle 9i

"Najm Hashmi" <najmhashmi_at_videotron.ca> wrote in message news:M4lvd.20600$i3.725627_at_weber.videotron.net...
> Thank you very much Mark. I just inherited the database from a 3rd party
> vendor without much docs... I will confirm with client why do they need
> rowversioning.
> Your links have been very helpful and I will certainly go through them
> thoroughly :)
> Regards,
> Najm
> "Mark Bole" <makbo_at_pacbell.net> wrote in message
> news:fPkvd.33533$zx1.27821_at_newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
> > Najm Hashmi wrote:
> > > Hi All,
> > > I need to migrate a SQL Sever Database to Oracle 9i. I am just curious
> what
> > > equivalent of SQL Server timestamp datatype in Oracle. Or how I can
> > > implement similar behavior in 9i. I am sure Oracle must have very
> elegant
> > > way to handle such situation.
> > >
> > > " timestamp is a data type that exposes automatically generated
binary
> > > numbers, which are guaranteed to be unique within a database.
timestamp
> is
> > > used typically as a mechanism for version-stamping table rows. The
> storage
> > > size is 8 bytes."
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance.
> > >
> > > Najm
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Closest thing would be SYS_GUID() function (see tahiti.oracle.com for
> > details).
> >
> > (There have been reports that this value is not necessarily truly,
> > globally, unique, but then I suppose there could be cases where SQL
> > Server timestamp is not always truly, globally, unique, in the same way
> > that computer-based random number generators are not truly random.)
> >
> > See also the definition of ROWID, which is built-in and therefore very
> > elegant!
> >
> >

>
http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B10501_01/server.920/a96524/glossary.htm#432703
> >
> > What are you using timestamp for in SQL Server? Generating a primary
> > key or other unique indexed value? An Oracle sequence would be an
> > appropriate replacement in this case.
> >
> > The following link also has some specific alternatives for guaranteeing
> > uniqueness of keys *across* databases, even though that isn't exactly
> > what you asked.
> >
> >

>
http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B10501_01/server.920/a96567/repconflicts.htm#21677
> >
> >
> > Mark Bole
> >
> >
> >

>
>

Usually need a system of row versioning because the application vendor is lazy and doesn't implement a proper primary key. I've even had vendor's tell me there isn't any primary key, but there are unique indexes. Jim Received on Mon Dec 13 2004 - 23:21:36 CST