extended audit_trail

Want to audit issued sql_text and binds in 11g database?

Documentation says that audit_trail parameter may have values

Parameter type String
Syntax AUDIT_TRAIL = { none | os | db [, extended] | xml [, extended] }

Trying

SQL> alter system set audit_trail='db, extended' scope=spfile;
alter system set audit_trail='db, extended' scope=spfile
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00096: invalid value db, extended for parameter audit_trail, must be from
among extended, xml, db_extended, false, true, none, os, db

Uups, the documented one did not work. I will try out the first suggested one.

SQL> alter system set audit_trail='extended' scope=spfile;
alter system set audit_trail='extended' scope=spfile
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-32017: failure in updating SPFILE
ORA-00096: invalid value EXTENDED for parameter audit_trail, must be from among
NONE | OS | DB | DB,EXTENDED | XML | XML,EXTENDED

Uups, Oracle did it again. DB,EXTENDED seems a bit closer to the one documented.

SQL> alter system set audit_trail='DB,EXTENDED' scope=spfile;
alter system set audit_trail='DB,EXTENDED' scope=spfile
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00096: invalid value DB,EXTENDED for parameter audit_trail, must be from
among extended, xml, db_extended, false, true, none, os, db

Back to the original error message. Yet another quess...

SQL> alter system set audit_trail='db_extended' scope=spfile;

System altered.

Yes I found it. After reboot sql_text and binds are collected.

Should the documentation say

Parameter type String
Syntax AUDIT_TRAIL = { none | true | false | os | db | db_extended | xml }

No. The problem is that issuing a String parameter as a quoted 'string'.

The correct way to do documented way

SQL> alter system set audit_trail=db, extended scope=spfile;

System altered.

This way also the new xml, extended is accepted, if someone likes it that way. Also some old (10.1) and alternative ways are also accepted. Although we should use only the documented ones.

SQL> alter system set audit_trail=true scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set audit_trail=false scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set audit_trail=db_extended scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set audit_trail=db,extended scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set audit_trail=db,  extended scope=spfile;
...

So minor issue, but should the ORA-00096 error messages be updated? Maybe. Compared to other product error messages the information Oracle gives in those are mostly understandable.