RE: detecting version of restored database controlfile

From: Jonathan Lewis <jonathan_at_jlcomp.demon.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 16:44:40 +0000
Message-ID: <CE70217733273F49A8A162EE074F64D9A707B5_at_exmbx09.thus.corp>

The control file itself holds the COMPATIBLE version. If you can do an "oradebug dump controlf 1" you should get something like:

DUMP OF CONTROL FILES, Seq # 18595 = 0x48a3  V10 STYLE FILE HEADER:

        Compatibility Vsn = 186646528=0xb200000
        Db ID=2575036341=0x997befb5, Db Name='TESTDB11'
 

(This was an 11.2 database with compatible = 11.2.0.0 , which you can see the in b 20 00 00)

In my case the controlfile blocks were 16KB, and the compatible field was in block 2, bytes 25 - 28 (with endianness: 27, 28, 25, 26).

If you can see v$controlfile, though, you can see v$parameter, so could simply check the compatible parameter.

Regards
Jonathan Lewis

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From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] on behalf of Jeremy Schneider [jeremy.schneider_at_ardentperf.com] Sent: 24 June 2013 16:13
To: Oracle-L
Subject: detecting version of restored database controlfile

Just curious, does anyone know an easy way to detect what version a controlfile is? I'm writing a program that needs to restore from a backup, and the original source database could be one of several versions. Of course if you try to open a DB with the wrong software version then it errors out -- so I'd like to detect and correct this condition as early as possible (ideally before restoring and recovering all the datafiles). So far haven't figured out a way to get the version from the RMAN recovery catalog or v$controlfile or v$database or anywhere else. Of couse v$version and v$instance show the software I'm using to do the restore, not the software of the control & data files I'm restoring. Anybody know a way to figure this out? Seems like the sort of thing that really should have been in the controlfile and recovery catalog...

-J

--

http://about.me/jeremy_schneider

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http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l-- http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l Received on Mon Jun 24 2013 - 18:44:40 CEST