Are you doing your tests in tablespaces with segment compression enabled ? You have bit 16 set, and I think that's the 'compressed segment' bit. 65900 = 65536 + 364 Something has set the bit unexpectedly, which has confused the issue. 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 March 2004 Hotsos Symposium - The Burden of Proof Dynamic Sampling - an investigation March 2004 Charlotte OUG (www.cltoug.org) CBO Tutorial April 2004 Iceland June 2004 UK - Optimising Oracle Seminar ----- Original Message ----- From: "Senthil Ramanujam" <sramanujam@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, March 01, 2004 6:36 PM Subject: Re: ORA - 14642 : partition exchange error > > > i checked tab$.spare1 column and this is what i got back. Thanks a lot > jonathan. > > -- a table with char(4) > SQL> r > 1 select spare1 > 2 from tab$, dba_objects do > 3 where do.object_id = tab$.obj# > 4* and do.object_name = 'PT' > > SPARE1 > ---------- > 364 > > -- a table with char(5) > SQL> r > 1 select spare1 > 2 from tab$, dba_objects do > 3 where do.object_id = tab$.obj# > 4* and do.object_name = 'PT' > > SPARE1 > ---------- > 65900 > > SQL> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------------------