RE: Where is Oracle 9.2 init.ora?

I guess your are right..

I am sincerely sorry about my earlier post. I must be drunk at that time as I could not replicate my test. I was mistaken (happens as I get old... ;)

However, let me state the following:
SPFILE is in ASCII format (on AIX and HP that I checked) And can be edited via 'the Six Editor' (that is the other name for VI editor per Dave Ensor ;)

There is some hashed information maintained in the 1st line based on the contents of the file when it was originally created.

I edited the file for a few parameters and bounced the DB. It started fine without any warnings, BUT it silently used the available init.ora file. My changes did not take effect. There was no ORA error or warning. Nothing in alert.log either.

When I renamed the init.ora file, and tried to bounce the database, it did not start. But now, following ORA errors were reported... SQL> startup
ORA-01078: failure in processing system parameters LRM-00109: could not open parameter file '/u01/home/oracle/product/9.0.1/dbs/initKED9.ora'

So, the lesson learned is not to edit the SPFILE. And if there is an init.ora file, Oracle will simply use it, if it the SPFILE does not pass the checks based in the hashed information in the 1st line of SPFILE.

And hence, there is still some work to be done by Oracle with how SPFILE is implemented.
I would like to see an error telling me that "available SPFILE is useless" before using the available init.ora file. Then I used the "corrupted" SPFILE to build a new init.ora file and started the database without any problems.  

I like to 'play' around with throw away databases to see how these new features work and how we can break them, there is nothing wrong in doing so. This is how I 'do oracle' :)

Cheers!

• Kirti

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ltiu [SMTP:ltiu_at_alumni.sfu.ca]
> Sent: Friday, July 12, 2002 5:27 PM
> To: ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com; Deshpande, Kirti
> Cc: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> Subject: RE: Where is Oracle 9.2 init.ora?
>
> You DBA's must be drunk.
>
> Spfiles are in binary format and if you open it in a text editor, all you
> see
> are weird characters.
>
> Man. You guys are actually doing Oracle? Scares me.
>
> ltiu
>
> Quoting "Deshpande, Kirti" <kirti.deshpande_at_verizon.com>:
>
> > I did edit it and had no problems while teting my 9i R1 on HP-UX 11.0
> :)
> >
> > - Kirti
> >
>
>
>
>

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Author: Deshpande, Kirti
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