Our system uses temporary tables at times. It makes the data access simpler across different processes such as apps, procedures, and reports. Temporary in this sense means that a table is created, popoulated, used, and then dropped. However there is another type of temporary table in Oracle.Global temporary tables (GTT) are implemented by Oracle. The are fast in that they have no redo or rollback. They operate in one of two ways. They either lose their data at the end of a transaction, or the end of a session. Which way is determined when you create the table.
GTTs themselves are static. The table structure is created once and remains in place always. It is the data that is transient. The data is private per session. No statistics are gathered on these tables. The data resides in the TEMP tablespace. They are cached in the buffer cache.
GTTs have been available since Oracle 8i. I would recommend you be familiar with them. You never know when you might find a table in your database that is a GTT.
