What's View and Synonym?
Posted by Kamran Agayev A. on 6th December 2008
A view is a virtual table. Every view has a Query attached to it. (The Query is a SELECT statement that identifies the columns and rows of the table(s) the view uses.)
A view is based on a table or another view and acts as a window through which data on tables can be viewed or changed. A view does not contain data. The definition of the view is stored in the data dictionary. You can see definition of view in user_view data dictionary table.
A view is a logical representation of another table or combination of tables. A view derives its data from the tables on which it is based. These tables are called base tables.
What is a synonym and what types it has?
A synonym is an alias for a schema object. Synonyms can provide a level of security by masking the name and owner of an object and by providing location transparency for remote objects of a distributed database. Also, they are convenient to use and reduce the complexity of SQL statements for database users.
Synonyms allow underlying objects to be renamed or moved, where only the synonym needs to be redefined and applications based on the synonym continue to function without modification.
You can create both public and private synonyms. A public synonym is owned by the special user group named PUBLIC and is accessible to every user in a database. A private synonym is contained in the schema of a specific user and available only to the user and the user’s grantees.
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