Earlier in this module, you learned that there are three modes that you can use to export information from your database. This lesson will focus on using full mode^[1] to create a complete export of the database. A full database export can be broken down into 1) complete, 2)cumulative, and 3) incremental backups. Cumulative and incremental exports take less time to complete than a complete backup, but add information to a previously performed complete backup.

A complete database export will back up all table and data definitions, roles, synonyms, triggers, system audit options, and more. (You can refer to the Oracle documentation set for a complete list.) To perform this type of export, you need to set the parameter inctype=complete. This type of export is the same as a full database export, because both will update the tables that track incremental and cumulative exports. The following command performs a complete export:

C:/Oracle/bin>exp80 userid=system/manager full=y

inctype=complete file=C:\export\exp001.dmp

The user SYS owns three tables (INCEXP, INCFIL, and INCVID) that contain information about exports. These tables are updated whenever you either specify the RECORD=Y parameter or do not specify a value for the RECORD parameter, because Y is the default value.

SYS.INCEXP keeps track of which database objects are exported in a specific export session. This table includes the columns OWNER#, NAME, TYPE#, CTIME, ITIME, and EXPID.
A few database administrator (DBA) views can be used to display information about incremental exports: DBA_EXP_OBJECTS, DBA_EXP_VERSION, DBA_EXP_FILES.

SYS.INCFIL tracks incremental and cumulative exports. This table contains the following columns: EXPID, EXPTYPE, EXPFILE, EXPDATA, and EXPUSER.

[1] Full mode: An export of the entire database. There are three options: complete, cumulative and incremental.