How to determine the Schemas inside an Oracle Data Pump Export file.

Question

• I have a Oracle database backup file (.dmp) that was created with expdp.
• The .dmp file was an export of an entire database.
• I need to restore 1 of the schemas from within this dump file.
• I dont know the names of the schemas inside this dump file.
• To use impdp to import the data i need the name of the schema to load.

So, I need to inspect the .dmp file and list all of the schemas in it, how do i do that?

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Update (2008-09-18 13:02) - More detailed information:

The impdp command i'm current using is:

impdp user/password@database directory=DPUMP_DIR 
      dumpfile=EXPORT.DMP logfile=IMPORT.LOG

And the DPUMP_DIR is correctly configured.

SQL> SELECT directory_path
2  FROM dba_directories
3  WHERE directory_name = 'DPUMP_DIR';

DIRECTORY_PATH
-------------------------
D:\directory_path\dpump_dir\

And yes, the EXPORT.DMP file is infact in that folder.

The error message I get when I run the impdp command is:

Connected to: Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition ...
ORA-31655: no data or metadata objects selected for job
ORA-39154: Objects from foreign schemas have been removed from import

This error message is mostly expected. I need the impdp command be:

impdp user/password@database directory=DPUMP_DIR dumpfile=EXPORT.DMP 
      SCHEMAS=SOURCE_SCHEMA REMAP_SCHEMA=SOURCE_SCHEMA:MY_SCHEMA

But to do that, I need the source schema.

Answer 1

Assuming that you do not have the log file from the expdp job that generated the file in the first place, the easiest option would probably be to use the SQLFILE parameter to have impdp generate a file of DDL (based on a full import). Then you can grab the schema names from that file. Not ideal, of course, since impdp has to read the entire dump file to extract the DDL and then again to get to the schema you're interested in, and you have to do a bit of text file searching for the various CREATE USER statements, but it should be doable.

Answer 2

If you open the DMP file with an editor that can handle big files, you might be able to locate the areas where the schema names are mentioned. Just be sure not to change anything. It would be better if you opened a copy of the original dump.

Answer 3

Update (2008-09-19 10:05) - Solution:

My Solution: Social engineering, I dug real hard and found someone who knew the schema name.
Technical Solution: Searching the .dmp file did yield the schema name.
Once I knew the schema name, I searched the dump file and learned where to find it.

Places the Schemas name were seen, in the .dmp file:

• <OWNER_NAME>SOURCE_SCHEMA</OWNER_NAME> This was seen before each table name/definition.

• SCHEMA_LIST 'SOURCE_SCHEMA' This was seen near the end of the .dmp.

Interestingly enough, around the SCHEMA_LIST 'SOURCE_SCHEMA' section, it also had the command line used to create the dump, directories used, par files used, windows version it was run on, and export session settings (language, date formats).

So, problem solved :)