Remove datafile from controlfile: recover partial database until time

Hi

Is it possible to remove datafile entry from control file while database is mounted ?

I managed to achieve that by using recreating control file with "CREATE CONTROLFILE..."
Is there another option ?
"alter database datafile ... offline drop" does not do that. It offlines the datafile.

If anyone is interested why I need that I can tell:

I develop a procedure to partially recover only some datafiles of database. It all works fine with "alter database datafile ... offline drop" except that sqlplus RECOVER UNTIL TIME has to be used instead of RMAN. RMAN does not allow such recovery. It works with SKIP TABLESPACES option but my task is more than that: I know which datafiles I have to restore exactly. However if controlfile is recreated from scratch and the unneeded files are omitted then RMAN recover works fine. RMAN recover has a few nice options like auto restoring of required archive logs and deleting them on a fly. Of course one can guess why I need all that: out of multy TB database only a few tabless needs to be restored :-] Sure, the storage space is an issue :-]

Thank you in advance. Laimis N

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