I was tempted to throw in another Dora the Explorer Map reference here, but I came to my senses.

Having trouble finding something? Maybe you’re just getting older? I know I am. But still, it’d be nice if my favorite database tool could help me out a bit. Hmmm, what’s this ‘Find Database Object‘ thing over here…sounds like a search mechanism of some sort?

You can access this panel from the ‘View‘ menu. It’s a good bit down the screen, so I don’t blame you if you haven’t seen it before. It makes finding ‘stuff’ in your database so much easier. Let’s say I want to find my ‘beer’ objects.

I simply need to type my search string and the context (in this case I want it to search EVERYTHING), and hit enter.

The search results are listed below and clicking on an object automatically opens it!

I know it seems very simple, but I get asked this question a LOT.

It will even search through your PL/SQL code!

Finding too much? Be sure to toggle off the ‘%’ wildcard check box before doing a search.

Working on a Project?

I bet you use common column names, or codes, throughout your tables. You could take advantage of this knowledge and use the Find Database Object panel as a substitute connection tree or schema browser. Working on your HR project and want to look at your employee objects? Do a column search for your column ID/key.

Sometimes thinking outside the box actually works!

Don’t be afraid to tackle a problem from a weird angle, or re-purpose your tools. I do it all the time :) And I drive the developers nuts trying to do things with the tools they were never designed to do. But I digress. Back to your coding!