By reversing the index you achive more balanced B-tree index.
This means the following:
LOOk at these key sequence (by insertion of records):
9872
9976
9651
9763
The B-tree will be disbalanced (all key points to one of the subtrees).
Oracle will need additional time to balance the tree.
When you use reverse keys this order will be automatically changed into
2789
6799
1569
3679
The keys will not disbalance the tree so fast and
there will be significantly less balancing activities.
This will spread the keys randomly in the tree
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by: gvsbnarayanaPosted on 2006-08-08 at 02:31:44ID: 17269860
Rebuild an Index --> Oracle create a new index and drops the existing one.. It is useful to reclaim the space utilized by the index after a mass deletion on the related table. When a large number of deletes occoured, then there migth be some "holes" in the index structure and you can reclaim the space as well as you can also decrease the depth of an index, which may result in performance.
Creating Reverse key index is a complete different matter. You are using a different mechanism to create your index.
Reverse Key indexes are more useful for a PK generated using a sequence.. Refer to oracle documentation for more details.
HTH
Regards,
Badri