Only because Oracle in their (lack of) wisdom have stopped you from doing so. There is no technical reason whatsoever why a text file can't be used for this as opposed to a binary file. It's Oracle's way of "forcing" people to use a feature that was not asked for in the first place. Cheers Nuno Souto nsouto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ----- Original Message ----- From: "Goulet, Dick" <DGoulet@xxxxxxxx> To: <BSpears@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2004 3:10 AM Subject: RE: 9i poll on spfile feature > Well, I'll disagree with Rachel. True having an INIT file is not = > currently broke, but without it you can't modify system parameters, like = > shared_pool_size on the fly. So yes I have migrated to them, of course = > I'va also added "create pfile=3D<name> from spfile" to my shutdown = > script, along with "alter database backup controlfile to trace". > > Save that there bacon, it's mine!! -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l