What is Database Files?

/u01/oradata/prod1/control01.ctl
/u05/oradata/prod1/control02.ctl
/u02/oradata/prod1/redo01.log
/u04/oradata/prod1/redo02.log

OFA file-naming conventions are designed to achieve the following goals:

 Show which tablespace a datafile belongs to.
 Distinguish database files from other files on the system.
 Distinguish between database files belonging to various databases.
 Identify control files, redo log files, and datafiles easily.


Oracle recommends that all tablespaces be named with no more than eight characters, with the
format tn,
 where t is a descriptive name for the tablespace and n is a two-digit number.
For datafiles,
the recommended notation is /pm/q/d/tn.dbf,
where pm is the mount point;
q is an indicator,
usually oradata;
d is the database name;
t is the descriptive name for the tablespace that contains this datafile;
and n is a two-digit number.
Thus, a typical datafile under the OFA guidelines would have a name
like /u20/oradata/prod/system01.dbf, which refers to a datafile in the System tablespace.