Morning John,
the problem was only the junk stuff that appeared in the browser and in the generated script which I created for comparison and to be able to paste into the email.
To determine if a constraint is created with VALIDATE or NOVALIDATE, which is why I needed a small dump file, you only have to use Toad's browser or run a SHOW=YES INDEXFILE=whatever against the dump file.
If the constraint name is known, on windows 'FIND /i "constraint_name_here" dump_file_name' and the command Oracle will use will be listed showing the constraint being enabled in whichever mode it is in the dump file.
I have discovered that Primary Key and Unique constraints are enabled VALIDATE all the time, even if they were exported NOVALIDATE. Referential Integrity constraints are enabled according to how they were configured in the exporting database. This sort of makes sense, but in the real world, my data are from production tables where they are already validated so the constraints could be enabled NOVALIDATE and much time could be saved on the import. (Did I mention that some tables are seriously over indexed - only the large tables of course!)
I'm currently working to get a database refresh (in the cloud on Azure on Windows 7) from a Solaris database exp file. It's takes 89 hours but with various tricks and methods, I've got it down to 34 hours so far. More testing is under way and the export file browser has been a godsend! Of course, having to wait for a day or two for test results is a tad frustrating - but it allows me to think up even more weird ways to make things run faster!
Whoever reverse engineered the file format deserves a pint of finest Herefordshire Cider in my opinion! [:)]
Cheers,
Norm. [TeamT]