Find deleted information from user_jobs in Oracle 10g

Question

Hello All,
I had scheduled a job in oracle 10g to run only once using dbms_jobs.
I wanted to find out how long the job took ( total_time) and what SQL it was running ( user_job.what) but the information about the job seem to get deleted from user_jobs once the job is completed.
Is there any other table/ view I can use to find these information?
Also, will it be possible to query the user_job as of previous time when the data was there? if yes, please also let me know what privilidges and setting is required. Currently, I just have basic developer priviledge.
Many thanks in advance for any help.

Answer 1

Information about how long a job took and what SQL it was running is not stored anywhere when you use DBMS_JOB. Once of the nice things about using DBMS_SCHEDULER rather than DBMS_JOB for job scheduling is that DBMS_SCHEDULER automatically logs timing information.
How long ago do you want to look at the data in USER_JOBS? If you are just trying to look back an hour or two ago, you may be able to use a flashback query. How far back you can go depends on your UNDO_RETENTION setting, the size of your UNDO tablespace, and the amount of UNDO that is generated by your system. The theoretical maximum you could flashback is 5 days, realistically, not many production databases can flashback more than a few hours unless someone has specifically identified the need to do longer-term flashback queries. The default UNDO_RETENTION is only 15 minutes. Plus, you're not guaranteed that you'll be able to flashback (that can be changed, but it's a pretty dangerous change because it will cause the database to stop if you run out of UNDO space).
Justin