v$sqltext vs v$sqlarea

I'm trying to understand what the critical difference between these 2 views (other than the obvious, which is v$sqlarea has a lot of statistical information).

Let me rephrase...

Why would I want to query v$sqltext, and not just query v$sqlarea?

v$sqltext really only has the hash_value and the sqltext - with the sql_text broken into various lines and pieced together by the pieces column.

v$sqlarea has both hash_value, sql_text, and a bunch of statistical information, PLUS!! the sql_text contains the sql statement as a whole (not broken up like v$sqltext).

In term of the hash_value and sqltext, is the data in these 2 views different in any sense (other than obviously that v$sqlarea has statistics)?

If not, It seems useless having v$sqlarea already... do you agree?

this should help you

http://asktom.oracle.com/pls/ask/f?p...D:385254862843

Thanks for that link. So it seems that v$sqlarea will "cutoff" the actual sql statement if it exceeds 1000 bytes. For my practical use, this would be a significant difference. I guess I would still need to rely on v$sqltext to get the entire sql stmt and use v$sqlarea for stats.