Reorg

A current question on the OTN database forum asks: “What’s the difference between object and tablespace reorganization?” Here’s an analogy to address the question.

I have three crates of Guiness in the boot (trunk) of my car, one crate has 4 bottles left, one has 7 bottles left and one has 2 bottles. I also have two cases of Louis Roederer Brut NV champagne, one case has 2 bottles left and one has only one. (I have two objects in my tablespace – one of type Beer, one of type Champagne – and my boot requires manual free space management .)

I move all the Guiness bottles into a single crate and all the champagne bottles into a single case. That’s a couple of “shrink space compact” calls – I’ve re-organised the objects to get all the bottles in each object close to each other, but the crates are still taking up space in the boot.

I take the two empty crates and the empty case out of the boot. That’s a couple of “resize” (or “shrink space” without “compact”) calls that free up space in the boot.

I now want to load a port barrel into car, but it won’t fit until I slide the remaining beer crate and champagne case together at one side of the boot. That’s a couple of “move” commands that have reorganized the boot (tablespace) to make the free space usable.