2 Day DBA > Managing Users and Security > About User Accounts
About User Accounts |
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A user account is identified by a user name and defines the user's attributes, including the following:
Password for database authentication
Privileges and roles
Default tablespace for database objects
Default temporary tablespace for query processing work space
When you create a user, you are also implicitly creating a schema for that user. A schema is a logical container for the database objects (such as tables, views, triggers, and so on) that the user creates. The schema name is the same as the user name, and can be used to unambiguously refer to objects owned by the user. For example, HR.EMPLOYEES
refers to the table named EMPLOYEES
in the HR
schema. (The EMPLOYEES
table is owned by HR
.) The terms database object and schema object are used interchangeably.
When you drop (delete) a user, you must either first drop all the user's schema objects, or use the cascade feature of the drop operation, which simultaneously drops a user and all of his schema objects.
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