An alias for the path name of a physical operating system directory or folder. For example, a database directory named olap_files might identify the operating system directory /home/oracle/product/11.1.0/oradata/orcl/olap_files.
A database directory is defined and managed using SQL commands within the database. Permission to create and access files within the directory by database users is also granted in SQL, and may or may not correspond to the permissions granted by the operating system.
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