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Question and Answer

Connor McDonald

Thanks for the question, José María.

Asked: October 13, 2021 - 11:00 am UTC

Last updated: October 21, 2021 - 2:26 am UTC

Version: 18xe

Viewed 1000+ times

You Asked

As you know, the association between an SCN and a timestamp when the SCN is generated is remembered by the database for a limited time period and an error is returned if the SCN specified for the argument to SCN_TO_TIMESTAMP is too old.

Example:

select scn_to_timestamp(max(ora_rowscn)) from MY_TABLE


ORA-08181: el número especificado no es un número de cambio del sistema válido
ORA-06512: en "SYS.SCN_TO_TIMESTAMP", línea 1
08181. 00000 - "specified number is not a valid system change number"
*Cause: supplied scn was beyond the bounds of a valid scn.
*Action: use a valid scn.


Nevertheless, I can obtain the max(ora_rowscn) from MY_TABLE without any kind of error:

select max(ora_rowscn) from MY_TABLE

 MAX(ORA_ROWSCN)
 ---------------
        99464620


I would like to obtain the corresponding timestamp of this ORA_ROWSCN approximately (I don't care if it may vary some hours), without using any AUDIT tool but using PL/SQL statements.

Does exist any relationship between the above MAX(ORA_ROWSCN) from MY_TABLE and the current ORA_ROWSCN from sysdate?

select timestamp_to_scn(sysdate), TO_CHAR(SYSDATE,'dd-mm-yyyy hh24:mi:ss') from dual
 
TIMESTAMP_TO_SCN(SYSDATE)  TO_CHAR(SYSDATE,'dd-mm-yyyy hh24:mi:ss')
-------------------------  ----------------------------------------
         116631465  13-10-2021 12:12:02



Could I calculate, using any kind of algorithm, the corresponding timestamp to 99464620 value?

Thanks in advance.

and Connor said...

Does exist any relationship between the above MAX(ORA_ROWSCN) from MY_TABLE and the current ORA_ROWSCN from sysdate?

No because that table might not have been updated in years.

If you cannot convert an SCN to a timestamp directly, then probably the closest you can get is by looking at v$log_history and v$archived_log which will have a timestamp and start/end scns entries in there. This will give you an estimate as to what time the scn 99464620 corresponds to.

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