Snapshots on prebuilt tables with reduced precision

Greetings all,

Initially I thought the option "with reduced precision" was used to get =
around the problem of replication tables where column orders or number =
of columns do not match. eg. master table has 4 columns but we only want =
to replicate 3 of the columns. And/or the order of the columns on the =
master and slave tables do not match.

However, today I've just discovered this definition in the Oracle =
manuals: "Specify WITH REDUCED PRECISION to authorize the loss of =
precision that will result if the precision of the table or materialized =
view columns do not exactly match the precision returned by subquery"=20
I'm now confused. What does "authorise the loss of precision" mean? =
Master column can be varchar(10) and slave column can be varchar(8) and =
2 characters dropped off in the process?
Am I right to assume that "with reduced precision" is used with the =
number of columns and/or order in the master and slave do not match?

TIA,

Leng.

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