Using APPEND hints

Question

Hi ,
i know that the APPEND hints is to prevent logging
and it works only if you use a select * from tbl
i.e insert /*+ APPEND */ into tbl2 select * from tbl1 ??
IF you use
insert /*+ APPEND */ into tbl2 select a.col1 , a.col2 from tbl1 a it WILL BE LOGGED ??
pls advise
tks & rdgs

Answer 1

from what i see in fact the 3rd option is writting even lesser to the redo log ?No, 2nd and 3rd options are exactly the same. In previous example, the difference was due to extent management operations I believe (when more space is needed, Oracle allocates new extents as we add more and more rows to our table).
Consider:
SQL> create table big as select owner, object_name from all_objects;
Table created.
SQL> -- Let's create initially large table segment, to postpone its extending ...
SQL> create table test STORAGE (INITIAL 20M) as select * from big where 1 = 0;
Table created.
SQL> set autot traceonly stat
SQL>
SQL> insert into test select * from big;
46660 rows created.
Statistics
          2  recursive calls
       1878  db block gets
        451  consistent gets
        196  physical reads
    1725756  redo size
        791  bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
        815  bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          4  SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          2  sorts (memory)
          0  sorts (disk)
      46660  rows processed
SQL> rollback;
Rollback complete.
SQL> insert /*+ APPEND */ into test select * from big;
46660 rows created.
Statistics
          0  recursive calls
         10  db block gets
        200  consistent gets
          0  physical reads
        504  redo size <==
        774  bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
        829  bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          4  SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          1  sorts (memory)
          0  sorts (disk)
      46660  rows processed
SQL> rollback;
Rollback complete.
SQL> insert /*+ APPEND */ into test select a.owner, a.object_name from big a;
46660 rows created.
Statistics
          0  recursive calls
         10  db block gets
        200  consistent gets
          0  physical reads
        504  redo size <==
        776  bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
        852  bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          4  SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          1  sorts (memory)
          0  sorts (disk)
      46660  rows processedSo, as far as I can see, they're the same.
... my dba told me that a insert with Append hints MUST use a select * in order not to cause loggingI guess your dba is smoking something :)