Oracle Data Dictionary

Concepts
The data dictionary is full of “Metadata”,
information about what is going-on inside your
database. The data dictionary is presented to
us in the form of a number of views. The
dictionary views come in two primary forms:
The DBA, ALL or USER views
- These views are used to manage database
structures.
The V$ Dynamic Performance Views
- These views are used to monitor real time
database statistics
 Oracle Dictionary Views
• There are hundreds of views in the data dictionary.  To see the
depth of the data dictionary views, here are the views that store data
about Oracle tables:
• * dba_all_tables
• * dba_indexes
• * dba_ind_partitions
• * dba_ind_subpartitions
• * dba_part_col_statistics
• * dba_subpart_col_statistics
• * dba_tables
• * dba_tab_cols
• * dba_tab_columns
• * dba_tab_col_statistics
• * dba_tab_partitions
• * dba_tab_subpartitions
 Oracle Data Dictionary

Managing Oracle requires the use of a

number of Oracle supplied views. These
views include the data dictionary and the
dynamic performance views. Together
these views allow you to:

• * Manage the database

• * Tune the database
• * Monitor the database
 Oracle Data Dictionary
• At the heart of every Oracle database is
the data dictionary. The data dictionary is
generated when the database is first
created. In this section we will discuss the
Oracle data dictionary. In it we will
discuss:
• * The purpose of the data dictionary
• * The architecture of the data dictionary
• * Uses of the data dictionary
 The Purpose of the Data
Dictionary
Metadata is data about data, or data that defines other data. The
Oracle data dictionary is metadata about the database. For
example, if you create a table in Oracle, metadata about that table is
stored in the data dictionary. Such things as column names, length,
and other attributes are stored. Thus, the data dictionary contains a
great volume of useful information about your database. Pretty
much everything you would want to know about your database is
contained in the data dictionary in some form.

As a DBA then, you can see why the data dictionary is so important.
Since you can’t possibly remember everything about your database
(like the names of all the tables and columns) Oracle remembers
this for you
 The Architecture of the Data
Dictionary

The data dictionary is created when the Oracle

database is created. It is owned by the SYS
user, and is stored principally in the SYSTEM
tablespace, though some components are
stored in the SYSAUX tablespace in Oracle
Database 10g.
The data dictionary is comprised of a number
of tables and Oracle views.
 The data dictionary views
• The data dictionary views come in three
main flavors:
• * User views
• * All views
• * DBA views