Import provides you with the capability of delaying index creation and maintenance services until after completion of the import and insertion of exported data. Performing index creation, re-creation, or maintenance after Import completes is generally faster than updating the indexes for each row inserted by Import.
Index creation can be time consuming, and therefore can be done more efficiently after the import of all other objects has completed. You can postpone creation of indexes until after the import completes by specifying INDEXES=n
. (INDEXES=y
is the default.) You can then store the missing index definitions in a SQL script by running Import while using the INDEXFILE
parameter. The index-creation statements that would otherwise be issued by Import are instead stored in the specified file.
After the import is complete, you must create the indexes, typically by using the contents of the file (specified with INDEXFILE
) as a SQL script after specifying passwords for the connect statements.