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ALTER TABLE ... SHRINK SPACE Command : Online Segment Shrink for
Tables, LOBs and IOTs
The ALTER TABLE ... SHRINK SPACE command was introduced in Oracle 10g to perform online segment shrinks for
tables, LOBs and IOT overflow segments.

Shrink Space Examples

Identify Large Segments
Row Movement
SecureFile LOBs
Comments and Restrictions 
Related articles.

Online Segment Shrink for Tables : Free Unused Space 

Reclaiming Unused Space in Datafiles

Shrink Space Examples

Here are some simple examples of the ALTER TABLE ... SHRINK SPACE command.

-- Enable row movement.

ALTER TABLE scott.emp ENABLE ROW MOVEMENT;

-- Recover space and amend the high water mark (HWM).

ALTER TABLE scott.emp SHRINK SPACE;

-- Recover space, but don't amend the high water mark (HWM).
ALTER TABLE scott.emp SHRINK SPACE COMPACT;

-- Recover space for the object and all dependant objects.

ALTER TABLE scott.emp SHRINK SPACE CASCADE;

The COMPACT option allows the shrink operation to be broken into two stages. First the rows are moved using the COMPACT option but the high water mark (HWM) is not
adjusted so no parsed SQL statements are invalidated. The HWM can be adjusted at a later date by reissuing the statement without the COMPACT option. At this point any
dependent SQL statements will need to be re-parsed.

Other shrink commands of interest are displayed below.

-- Shrink a LOB segment (basicfile only until 21c).

ALTER TABLE table_name MODIFY LOB(lob_column) (SHRINK SPACE);
ALTER TABLE table_name MODIFY LOB(lob_column) (SHRINK SPACE CASCADE);

-- Shrink an IOT overflow segment.

ALTER TABLE iot_name OVERFLOW SHRINK SPACE;

There is more detail about this functionality below.

Identify Large Segments

The DBA|ALL|USER_SEGMENTS views can be used to identify large segments. The following example uses a top-n query to display the 20 largest segments.

SET LINESIZE 200

COLUMN owner FORMAT A30
COLUMN segment_name FORMAT A30
COLUMN tablespace_name FORMAT A30
COLUMN size_mb FORMAT 99999999.00

SELECT *
FROM (SELECT owner,
segment_name,
segment_type,
tablespace_name,
ROUND(bytes/1024/1024,2) size_mb
FROM dba_segments
ORDER BY 5 DESC)
WHERE ROWNUM <= 20;

You may see many of the larger segments being LOB segments. You can get more information about LOB segments specifically using the following top-n query.
 SET LINESIZE 200
COLUMN owner FORMAT A30
COLUMN table_name FORMAT A30
COLUMN column_name FORMAT A30
COLUMN segment_name FORMAT A30
COLUMN tablespace_name FORMAT A30
COLUMN size_mb FORMAT 99999999.00

SELECT *
FROM (SELECT l.owner,
l.table_name,
l.column_name,
l.segment_name,
l.tablespace_name,
ROUND(s.bytes/1024/1024,2) size_mb
FROM dba_lobs l
JOIN dba_segments s ON s.owner = l.owner AND s.segment_name = l.segment_name
ORDER BY 6 DESC)
WHERE ROWNUM <= 20;

The following scripts are examples of these types of queries.

large_segments.sql
large_lob_segments.sql

Row Movement
The ALTER TABLE ... SHRINK SPACE command moves rows between existing blocks to compact the data, so before you attempt to shrink a table segment you need to
enable row movement. You can check if row movement is already enabled by querying the ROW_MOVEMENT column of the [DBA|ALL|USER]_TABLES views.

SELECT row_movement
FROM user_tables
WHERE table_name = 'EMP';

ROW_MOVE
--------
DISABLED

SQL>

Row movement is enabled with the following command.

ALTER TABLE emp ENABLE ROW MOVEMENT;

Repeating the previous query shows row movement is now enabled.

SELECT row_movement
FROM user_tables
WHERE table_name = 'EMP';

ROW_MOVE
--------
ENABLED

SQL>

SecureFile LOBs
When using basicfile LOBs the shrink commands work as expected. To demonstrate this we need to create the following table containing a basicfile LOB column.

DROP TABLE lob_tab PURGE;

CREATE TABLE lob_tab (

id NUMBER,
data CLOB
)
LOB(data) STORE AS BASICFILE (DISABLE STORAGE IN ROW);

INSERT INTO lob_tab VALUES (1, 'ONE');

COMMIT;

We can see both shrink commands complete without errors.

 SQL> ALTER TABLE lob_tab MODIFY LOB(data) (SHRINK SPACE);

Table altered.

SQL> ALTER TABLE lob_tab MODIFY LOB(data) (SHRINK SPACE CASCADE);

Table altered.

SQL>

Now recreate the table using a securefile LOB column.

DROP TABLE lob_tab PURGE;

CREATE TABLE lob_tab (

id NUMBER,
data CLOB
)
LOB(data) STORE AS SECUREFILE (DISABLE STORAGE IN ROW);

INSERT INTO lob_tab VALUES (1, 'ONE');

COMMIT;

Now the first command fails, but adding the CASCADE option appears to make it work.

SQL> ALTER TABLE lob_tab MODIFY LOB(data) (SHRINK SPACE);

ALTER TABLE lob_tab MODIFY LOB(data) (SHRINK SPACE)
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-10635: Invalid segment or tablespace type

SQL> ALTER TABLE lob_tab MODIFY LOB(data) (SHRINK SPACE CASCADE);

Table altered.

SQL>

Unfortunately, the second command doesn't work and the securefile LOB segment is not shrunk.

Instead, to shrink a securefile LOB segment you need to move it. In the following example the move is to the same tablespace.

ALTER TABLE lob_tab MOVE LOB(data) STORE AS (TABLESPACE users);

Comments and Restrictions

Here are some things to consider before performing shrink operations.

Moving rows can cause problem with rowid based triggers.

Rowid materialized views must be rebuilt after a shrink operation.
The shrinking process is only available for objects in tablespaces with automatic segment-space management enabled.
You can't combine the SHRINK SPACE clause with any other ALTER TABLE clauses.
You can't shrink a cluster or a clustered table.
You can't shrink any object with a LONG column.
You can't shrink tables with dependent function-based indexes, domain indexes, or bitmap join indexes.
You can't shrink tables that are the master table of an ON COMMIT materialized view
Mapping tables of index-organized tables are not affected by a shrink.
Shrinks can't be used for compressed tables, except those using Advanced Row Compression (ROW STORE COMPRESS ADVANCED).
The shrink operation against a table doesn't cascade to the LOB segments. They need to handled separately.
You can't shrink securefile LOB segments.
Changing the arrangement of rows in a table can have a negative impact on performance in some circumstances. Test thoroughly before making any decisions.
After any structural change, like a move, remember to check for unusuable indexes. You can use the unusuable_indexes.sql script to find them. If you have any,
rebuild them.

For more information see:

ALTER TABLE
Online Segment Shrink for Tables : Free Unused Space 
Reclaiming Unused Space in Datafiles

Hope this helps. Regards Tim...

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Created: 2018-01-27 Updated: 2022-02-27

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