RE: Oracle and DST changes

Okay, thanks for setting me straight. After a few hours navigating all the notes, I think I have it figured out now and there are a few key things I'd like to clear up in case anyone else is as confused as I was:  

1. My count of 159 columns yesterday was wrong. I got that by querying dba_tab_columns, but I forgot that view also contains VIEW columns. Today, I ran the query from Metalink 402614.1, and it showed that I really have only 56 TSTZ columns in actual tables.
2. Metalink 396671.1 seems to clear up the confusion we had between your findings with utltzuv2.sql and the statement I quoted from Metalink 359145.1. Under the sub heading "Data dictionary tables listed in results of utltzuv2.sql", it states that most dictionary columns only use offsets rather than named timezones, so even though they are TSTZ columns, the data is not affected.
3. Even if data is stored with an affected time zone, the data will not be affected if it isn't in an affected time frame (i.e. after 3/11/07 for US time zones).
4. On 10g, even if you don't currently have any affected data, you should probably install the patch now to prevent affected data from being inserted later and then having to be backed up and restored during the patching.

Metalink 402614.1 covers all the above topics in more detail - I highly recommend reading this one.

In Oracle's defense, I should add that there wasn't really any inconsistency, because the quote I took from Metalink 359145.1 does clearly state that 10.2 dictionary only needs to be patched if the data "uses the affected time zones". The confusion was my fault because I assumed that it would be using affected time zones simply because we're running our system in the U.S., but since it uses offsets rather than named time zones, that is not the case.

I hope that helps and doesn't just add to the confusion.

Regards,
Brandon

From: Mercadante, Thomas F (LABOR)
[mailto:Thomas.Mercadante_at_labor.state.ny.us]

I saw that and reran the utltzuv2.sql file against my 10g database (10.2.0.2) and it reports nothing to be concerned about. How's that for inconsistency?

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