Question: SCN too large for archive-log restore

Hi there...

I have an 8i database which I want to refresh into a test environment, so developers can have an up-to-date copy at all times.

The idea is to bring an existing cold backup over to the new instance, restore it, mount it, and then nightly, copy over the redo logs from the source database and recover the logs up to the point of the latest commit on the source database.

I am attempting to extract the SCN from the source database, which I would then pass to a SQL statement against the target, saying 'recover database until change ####'.

To get the SCN, I am trying to 'SELECT min (CHECKPOINT_CHANGE#) FROM V_$DATAFILE'. Within TOAD, I get a value (a very large value, admittedly); but if I run the same query from SQL++ on the UNIX server which hosts the database, I get an exponent value rather than a whole number. the exponent is roughly 2.2E+12. I cannot get a whole number from SQL++ which I could then pass to the recover statement.

Presumably, my SCN is going to be the same regardless where I pull it from. Will I have to 'reset' my SCN by some mechanism, or is there some way I can set the format of the output of the SQL statement such that it returns a whole number?

Any other strategies for accomplishing a similar goal will be appreciated.

Thanks!

Cheers,

DW. Received on Tue Feb 01 2005 - 15:25:13 CST