Enabling Oracle Managed Files

It turns out I was wrong about Oracle XE not supporting Oracle Managed Files. It is just turned off by default. Here is how to turn it on:

sqlplus system@XE
...
SQL> alter system set db_create_file_dest='/usr/lib/oracle/xe/oradata/';

System altered.

You can confirm it works with:

SQL> create tablespace my_test_tablespace datafile size 1M;

Tablespace created.

SQL> select file_name from dba_data_files;

FILE_NAME
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/usr/lib/oracle/xe/oradata/XE/users.dbf
/usr/lib/oracle/xe/oradata/XE/sysaux.dbf
/usr/lib/oracle/xe/oradata/XE/undo.dbf
/usr/lib/oracle/xe/oradata/XE/system.dbf
/usr/lib/oracle/xe/oradata/XE/datafile/o1_mf_my_test__2jxoyjpr_.dbf

SQL> drop tablespace my_test_tablespace;

Tablespace dropped.

SQL> exit