As much as I like the traditional explain plan support in SQL Developer, and even the ability to pull cached plans out by the SQL_ID – sometimes you just want to get the plan the old fashioned way.

The New Way

Note the drop-down control added to the Explain Plan button in the worksheet toolbar.
Note the drop-down control added to the Explain Plan button in the worksheet toolbar.

The Older Way

Ask for plan, show plan.
Ask for plan, show plan.

Ugh. That’s a little icky to read.

Remember – you need to set a fixed-width font.

Tools – Preferences – Code Editor – Fonts

Ahhh, that's much better :)
Ahhh, that’s much better 🙂

Fonts Are Very Important

If you’re having display issues with your data, it’s almost ALWAYS the font’s fault. Set a font that supports the characters and character sets you’re trying to display. You don’t have to worry much about corruption with SQL Developer because we natively support Unicode.

A Font that's not non-English friendly
A Font that’s not non-English friendly

Exact same text, except rendered with the Tahoma font
Exact same text, except rendered with the Tahoma font
Author

I'm a Distinguished Product Manager at Oracle. My mission is to help you and your company be more efficient with our database tools.

4 Comments

  1. BTW, by reading other comments (and my own comments too), I did read that the comment date is wrong, for example, I post my comment a few minutes ago and it says: 4 hours ago .- how’s that?

    Have you think in change the way the comment date shows?

    Thank you again, Jeff for share your knowledge.

    God bless you and your family.

  2. “it’s all in the font” – important tip to have in mind, indeed.
    Thanks, Jeff.

    PS: How can be added more fonts to SQL Developer or how can SQL Detect which fonts are installed – on a Windows machine and use such fonts?

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