The blevel has to be recorded in the block, and there is only one byte reserved for it, so there is a limit of 255 built in. However, Steve Adams suggested that the byte also can hold some unspecified flag information, so that reduces the maximum. However, if only the low 5 bits were available for the blevel, I would have expected a maximum blevel of 31, height of 32, rather than Tanel's indication that the maximum height was 24. Regards Jonathan Lewis http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk The Co-operative Oracle Users' FAQ http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/faq/ind_faq.html April 2004 Iceland http://www.index.is/oracleday.php June 2004 UK - Optimising Oracle Seminar ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lex de Haan" <lex.de.haan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2004 12:05 PM Subject: RE: Maximum height of an Oracle B-tree index : Jonathan, : : just thinking here -- I don't know of any internal reasons for a maximum : B*-tree height in Oracle, right? : any branch block only knows about its children, so we can go on splitting as : long as we like ... : : cheers, : Lex. : ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to: oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. -- Archives are at //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/ FAQ is at //www.freelists.org/help/fom-serve/cache/1.html -----------------------------------------------------------------