Oracle Data File Format

What is the format of Oracle's d开发者_JAVA百科ata (.DBF) files? I know that it probably doesn't have an official, publicly-available specification, but I was curious none-the-less.

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Tom Kyte's book Expert Oracle Database Architecture: Oracle Database 9i, 10g, and 11g Programming Techniques and Solutions contains a lot of information about how Oracle stores its data (from files to records). He explains all the concepts of files, pages, records, partitions, extents, tables, indices etc.

It doesn't exactly contain a description of the file layout. But these concepts are essential for understanding Oracle's storage organization. And it might be the most comprehensiv public documentation about the inner workings of Oracle.