Truncate table vs drop table and fragmentation

From: Doug Smith <doug.smith_at_fmr.com>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 08:58:28 -0600
Message-ID: <n9ll3.119$PJ.31@news-srv1.fmr.com>

Greetings, Oracle experts.

I have an Oracle 7.3.4 installation I use for development. We've been doing some longevity testing on our app, and in between runs I need to clean out the database.

The easiest way for me to do this is to drop the tables and recreate them. We have a DBA in the office, however, who tells me I'm an idiot for doing this since I'll fragment the tablespaces, and that I should truncate the tables instead. Unfortunately, he is unable to articulate why this would cause fragmentation.

I haven't seen any performance degradation or encountered any problems with creating new extents, so I'm a bit skeptical.

Can anyone explain this to me, or point me to the appropriate Oracle documentation.

Thanks

--Doug Received on Wed Jul 21 1999 - 09:58:28 CDT