Re: spfile vs pfile in 9i

From: Howard J. Rogers <hjr_at_dizwell.com>
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 18:15:06 +1000
Message-Id: <417a1300$0$11774$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>

Fabrizio wrote:

> 
> 
> Richard Stanton wrote:

>> Hello
>>
>> can anyone explain to me what the advantages of using spfiles are over
>> the traditional pfiles? Is it just the ability to make changes to the
>> database on the fly without editing files etc?
>>
>> Also, why are there so many pfiles created for each database in 9i,
>> and what do they all do?
>>
>> I have a test database and the following pfiles have been created for
>> it:
>>
>> oracle\ora92\database\inittest.ora
>> oracle\ora92\sysman\ifiles\def_TEST.domain.co.UK.ora
>> oracle\admin\test\pfile\init.ora
>>
>> and this spfile:
>>
>> oracle\ora92\database\spfiletest.ora
>>
>> thanks for your help
>>
>> Richard

> 
> 
> In a spfile I miss the old-fashioned comments who could be added in a
> pfile. :(

First, comments should never be in the init.ora. They make it extremely hard to read, and I well recall the 33-page one I had to wade through not a million years ago: every damn parameter preceeded by comments such as "I, Fred, was authorised by Wilma to increase the shared pool to 160MB. This was because of blah-de-blah-de-blah". You could never tell whether a line in the file was actually setting something or was merely the start of another essay on the meaning of life as seen by Fred.

Yuk, yuk, yuk. The init.ora should be short, sharp and functional. Keep change management (and change history) out of it.

Second, you can of course add comments into the spfile (each new comment over-writing the last for any given parameter).

alter system set shared_pool_size=80M comment='I, Fred, am a wally' scope=spfile sid='*';

Regards
HJR Received on Sat Oct 23 2004 - 03:15:06 CDT