Anybody ever seen a init.ora file in an init.ora file that looks like *.db_block_size=8192 *.db_cache_size=256M etc? I've never seen an asterisk and period at the beginning of a init.ora line before. I know this is not a spfile, because 'alter system .... scope=spfile' command get ORA-32001 errors. What is the significance of the asterisk and period? -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l