Oracle patch levels

Hi

I am writing the step-by-step guide to securing Oracle for the SANS Institute and one of the actions I have added to the pre-amble section of the book is to find and record OS, and Oracle versions and patch levels. I have searched the documentation and also this groups archive and although this question seems to have been asked a number of times I have not found an answer that defines how to tell exactly which patches are applied.

I understand that the 4th digit shown in the version number from v$version shows the patch level, although I have seen that this is not always updated when patches are applied from personal experience.

The question is to everyone, is there a way to find out exactly which patches have been applied and if so how?, is it stored in the inventory somewhere? or in an OS file somewhere, that I could query.

Thanks in advance.

kind regards

Pete

-- 
Pete Finnigan

pete_at_peterfinnigan.demon.co.uk
pete_at_petefinnigan.com