P

password file

A text-based operating system file that contains passwords for administrative accounts that need SYSDBA privileges, especially for database shutdown and startup and other maintenance operations that must be performed when the data dictionary is not available.

pending area

A staging area where Database Resource Manager objects can be created, modified, deleted, and validated before being activated and moved into the data dictionary. See also Database Resource Manager.

permanent

Oracle files in the Flash Recovery Area that cannot be deleted without causing the instance to fail, such as multiplexed copies of control files and the online redo log files. All other files in the Flash Recovery Area will eventually be deleted when they become obsolete due to the retention policy or when they are moved to tape.

persistent settings or parameters

Configuration settings for each database that are maintained after Recovery Manager (RMAN) stops and restarts.

PGA

See Program Global Area.

PGA_AGGREGATE_TARGET

An initialization parameter used to define the total amount of memory available to APMM. See also Automatic PGA Memory Management.

physical corruption

See block corruption.

PL/SQL expression

A snippet of PL/SQL code that evaluates to a desired datatype value. For example, repeat intervals can be defined by PL/SQL expressions that evaluate to a valid date.

program

An Oracle scheduler object that specifies a PL/SQL block, stored procedure, or external operating system executable, and its associated arguments and metadata.

Program Global Area (PGA)

A private memory area allocated to each process. The PGA contains a private SQL area (for bind variables and so on) and a SQL work area (for intensive SQL operations).