e-Commerce Applications Using Oracle8i and Java from Scratch

Physical Database Structure

The physical structure of an Oracle database consists of several file types: the initialization file, control files, redo logs, archive log files, and data files.

Initialization File

When the database starts up, it is initialized by using the parameters in the initialization parameter file (initSID.ora). This file is read only during database startup. In order for changes made to the initialization file to take effect, the database must be restarted.

The following sample initialization file shows you what it contains:

 #Name of the database db_name = test #Name of the instance instance_name = test #Maximum number of database files db_files = 2048 #Location of control files control_files = ("c:\database\test\control01.ctl", ...