Oracle Database Compression 1 - Basic Compression

Basic Row Compression

This type of compression is intended for bulk load operations.The database does not compress data modified using conventional DML.You must use direct path loads, ALTER TABLE . . . MOVE operations, or online table redefinition to achieve basic compression. When using basic compression, Oracle automatically set the pctfree to zero. For an uncompressed table/partition, alter table xxx compress basic does nothing to the data, user has to issue: alter table xxx move. Subsequently, user needs to rebuild all indexes on that table.

How it works

Dictionary-based  compression : Table compression works by eliminating column value repetitions within individual blocks. Duplicate values in all the rows and columns in a block are stored once at the beginning of the block, in what is called a symbol table for that block. All occurrences of such values are replaced with a short reference to the symbol table. The compression is higher in blocks th