Changing Datafile Size

Enabling and Disabling Automatic Extension for a Datafile

You can create datafiles or alter existing datafiles so that they automatically increase in size when more space is needed in the database. The file size increases in specified increments up to a specified maximum.

Setting your datafiles to extend automatically provides these advantages:

• Reduces the need for immediate intervention when a tablespace runs out of space

• Ensures applications will not halt or be suspended because of failures to allocate extents

To determine whether a datafile is auto-extensible, query the DBA_DATA_FILES view and examine the AUTOEXTENSIBLE column.

You can specify automatic file extension by specifying an AUTOEXTEND ON clause when you create datafiles using the following SQL statements:

• CREATE DATABASE

• ALTER DATABASE

• CREATE TABLESPACE

• ALTER TABLESPACE

You can enable or disable automatic file extension for existing datafiles, or manually resize a datafile, using the ALTER DATABASE statement. For a bigfile tablespace, you are able to perform these operations using the ALTER TABLESPACE statement.

The following example enables automatic extension for a datafile added to the users tablespace:

ALTER TABLESPACE users
    ADD DATAFILE '/u02/oracle/rbdb1/users03.dbf' SIZE 10M
      AUTOEXTEND ON
      NEXT 512K
      MAXSIZE 250M;

The value of NEXT is the minimum size of the increments added to the file when it extends. The value of MAXSIZE is the maximum size to which the file can automatically extend.

The next example disables the automatic extension for the datafile.

ALTER DATABASE DATAFILE '/u02/oracle/rbdb1/users03.dbf' 
    AUTOEXTEND OFF;

Manually Resizing a Datafile

You can manually increase or decrease the size of a datafile using the ALTER DATABASE statement. Therefore, you can add more space to your database without adding more datafiles. This is beneficial if you are concerned about reaching the maximum number of datafiles allowed in your database.

For a bigfile tablespace you can use the ALTER TABLESPACE statement to resize a datafile. You are not allowed to add a datafile to a bigfile tablespace.

Manually reducing the sizes of datafiles enables you to reclaim unused space in the database. This is useful for correcting errors in estimates of space requirements.

In the next example, assume that the datafile /u02/oracle/rbdb1/stuff01.dbf has extended up to 250M. However, because its tablespace now stores smaller objects, the datafile can be reduced in size.

The following statement decreases the size of datafile /u02/oracle/rbdb1/stuff01.dbf:

ALTER DATABASE DATAFILE '/u02/oracle/rbdb1/stuff01.dbf'
   RESIZE 100M;