Differences Between Rowid & Primary Key Materialized Views (Doc ID 254593.1)

Last updated on NOVEMBER 07, 2023

Applies to:

Oracle Database Cloud Service - Version N/A and later
Oracle Database - Enterprise Edition - Version 7.3.4.0 and later
Oracle Database Cloud Schema Service - Version N/A and later
Oracle Database Exadata Express Cloud Service - Version N/A and later
Gen 1 Exadata Cloud at Customer (Oracle Exadata Database Cloud Machine) - Version N/A and later
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Purpose

NOTE: In the images and/or the document content below, the user information and data used represents fictitious data from the Oracle sample schema(s) or Public Documentation delivered with an Oracle database product. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended in any manner.

The purpose of this article is to explain the differences between rowid and primary key materialized views and materialized view logs. This article also discusses when to use rowid or primary key materialized views/logs in a distributed environment or a data warehouse environment.

This note does not cover different types of materialized views in a datawarehouse environment, please refer to Oracle9i Data Warehousing Guide Release 2.

The terms snapshot and materialized view are synonymous. This article will use the term "materialized view".

Additional notes are referenced in this article that address specific issues or provide additional information.

Scope

To be used by anyone interested in understanding the differences between rowid and primary key materialized views in distributed and datawarehousing environments.