Default: operating system-dependent. See your Oracle operating system-specific documentation to determine the default value for this parameter.
Specifies the size, in bytes, of the buffer used to fetch rows. As a result, this parameter determines the maximum number of rows in an array fetched by Export. Use the following formula to calculate the buffer size:
buffer_size = rows_in_array * maximum_row_size
If you specify zero, then the Export utility fetches only one row at a time.
Tables with columns of type LOBs, LONG, BFILE, REF, ROWID, LOGICAL ROWID, or DATE are fetched one row at a time.
Note:
The BUFFER parameter applies only to conventional path Export. It has no effect on a direct path Export. For direct path Exports, use the RECORDLENGTH parameter to specify the size of the buffer that Export uses for writing to the export file.
This section shows an example of how to calculate buffer size.
The following table is created:
CREATE TABLE sample (name varchar(30), weight number);
The maximum size of the name column is 30, plus 2 bytes for the indicator. The maximum size of the weight column is 22 (the size of the internal representation for Oracle numbers), plus 2 bytes for the indicator.
Therefore, the maximum row size is 56 (30+2+22+2).
To perform array operations for 100 rows, a buffer size of 5600 should be specified.