Index rebuild - Direct-path

[Nikee]

Hello,

I am planning to rebuild few indexes in our production system.

Example:

>alter index "ZXML_IAM_EMAIL~0" rebuild online parallel 8 nologging compute statistics;

Also I heard that we can use the Direct-path operations (no rollback/undo generated) to rebuild an index.

How can I use the Direct-path option in the above Index rebuild sql statement?

Thanks,
Nikee

[Mr.Hanky]

HEY

Where is Tom Kyte when we need him!?

[DaPi]

There is much to be read about the need or otherwise to rebuild indexes - infact at the moment it's hard to avoid it! My interpretation of what I read is that it is rarely necessary/useful. (And can wreck your indexes - been there, done that, very colourful T-shirt). So you'd better know what you're doing and why.

The nologging is the "best" you can do in an index rebuild.

slim & Tamil helped me to understand this:
http://www.dbasupport.com/forums/sho...0&pagenumber=2

and specifically from the doc for alter index:
http://download-west.oracle.com/docs...8a.htm#2050160

Use the logging_clause to specify whether subsequent Direct Loader (SQL*Loader) and direct-path INSERT operations against a nonpartitioned index, a range or hash index partition, or all partitions or subpartitions of a composite-partitioned index will be logged (LOGGING) or not logged (NOLOGGING) in the redo log file.

P.S. AFAIK direct-path, direct load refer to operations on the table, not the index.