Re: Drawbacks for direct path

In article <43da87fbc92149ce8f2597cb8cd00c97_at_OracleMonster.com>, deepa balu via OracleMonster.com says...
>
>To add upon a few points
>
>Use a Direct Path Load when You have a large amount of data to load quickly. A
>direct path load can quickly load and index large amounts of data. It can also
>load data into either an empty or nonempty table.
>
>SQL*Loader need not execute any SQL INSERT commands; therefore, the
>processing load on the Oracle database is reduced.
>
>
>A direct path load calls on Oracle to lock tables and indexes at the start of
>the load and releases them when the load is finished
>When data is being loaded in a table using the direct path load option, the
>table data can only be accessed when the table is not indexed or the indexes
>are not used by the query.
>
>RESTRICTIONS: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> -Cannot load clustered tables.
> -There can be no active transactions in the loaded tables.
> -There can be no SQL functions used in the control file.
>-If the target table is indexed, then no SELECT statements may be issued
>against the table during the load.
>

best to point to the doc, your's is a partial list from 8i and not all of those apply anymore.

9i restrictions:
http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B10501_01/server.920/a96652/ch09.htm#1007604

8i restrictions:
http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/A87860_01/doc/server.817/a76955/ch08.htm#975

-- 
Thomas Kyte
Oracle Public Sector
http://asktom.oracle.com/
opinions are my own and may not reflect those of Oracle Corportation