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# 10
Offline Database Verification Utility

This chapter describes how to use the off-line database verification utility, DB_VERIFY. The chapter includes the following topics:

- Functionality
- Restrictions
- Usage
  - Command-Line Syntax
  - Parameters
- Server Manager Compatibility

## DB_VERIFY

DB_VERIFY is an external command-line utility that performs a physical data structure integrity check on an offline database. It can be used against backup files and online files (or pieces of files). You use DB_VERIFY primarily when you need to insure that a backup database (or datafile) is valid before it is restored or as a diagnostic aid when you have encountered data corruption problems.

Because DB_VERIFY can be run against an offline database, integrity checks are significantly faster.

  Additional Information: The name and location of DB_VERIFY is dependent on your operating system (for example, dbv on Sun/Sequent systems). See your operating system-specific Oracle documentation for the location of DB_VERIFY for your system.

### Restrictions

DB_VERIFY checks are limited to cache managed blocks.

### Syntax

#### Parameters

#####

FILE | The name of the database file to verify,
START | The starting block address to verify. Specify block addresses in Oracle blocks (as opposed to operating system blocks). If you do not specify START, DB_VERIFY defaults to the first block in the file.
END | The ending block address to verify. If you do not specify END, DB_VERIFY defaults to the last block in the file.
BLOCKSIZE | BLOCKSIZE is required only if the file to be verified has a non-2kb block size. If you do not specify BLOCKSIZE for non-2kb files, you will see the error DBV-00103.
LOGFILE | Specifies the file to which logging information should be written. The default sends output to the terminal display.
FEEDBACK | Specifying the keyword FEEDBACK causes DB_VERIFY to send a progress display to the terminal in the form of a single dot "." for n number of pages verified during the DB_VERIFY run. If n = 0, there will be no progress display.
HELP | Provides onscreen help.
PARFILE | Specifies the name of the parameter file to use. You can store various values for DB_VERIFY parameters in flat files allowing you to have parameter files customized for specific types of integrity checks and/or for different types of datafiles.

### Enterprise Manager

Enterprise Manager can be used to perform the verification process as well. The verification of the entire database or a tablespace will be managed by Enterprise Manager in that it will invoke the verification process on each individual file.

For more information, see your Enterprise Manager documentation.

### Sample DB_VERIFY Output

The following example shows how to get online help:

    % dbv help=y

    DBVERIFY: Release 7.3.1.0.0 - Wed Aug  2 09:14:36 1995

    Copyright (c) Oracle Corporation 1979, 1994.  All rights reserved.

    Keyword   Description        (Default)
    ----------------------------------------------
    FILE      File to Verify     (NONE)
    START     Start Block        (First Block of File)
    END       End Block          (Last Block of File)
    BLOCKSIZE Logical Block Size (2048)
    LOGFILE   Output Log         (NONE)

This is sample output of verification for the file, t_db1.f. The feedback parameter has been given the value 100 to display one dot onscreen for every 100 pages processed:

    % dbv file=t_db1.f feedback=100

    DBVERIFY: Release 7.3.1.0.0 - Wed Aug  2 09:15:04 1995

    Copyright (c) Oracle Corporation 1979, 1994.  All rights reserved.

    DBVERIFY - Verification starting : FILE = t_db1.f

    ............................................................................
    ....

    DBVERIFY - Verification complete

    Total Pages Examined         : 9216
    Total Pages Processed (Data) : 2044
    Total Pages Failing   (Data) : 0
    Total Pages Processed (Index): 733
    Total Pages Failing   (Index): 0
    Total Pages Empty            : 5686
    Total Pages Marked Corrupt   : 0

    Total Pages Influx           : 0

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