SQL Developer is built by Oracle, for Oracle. It’s the database IDE. That’s my current elevator pitch, at least. But, SQL Developer is also a fully featured data modeling solution (have you been enjoying my data modeling posts?) AND a 3rd party database migration platform. The migration piece is the Migration Workbench. Since we support migrations from these other database platforms, wouldn’t it be neat if SQL Developer could connect and query those 3rd party…
Data models sure are handy. They tell a story – how does the information get stored as data? Just what is a ‘customer?’ Sometimes though our applications die and only leave legacy scripts behind. Or maybe you are a DBA and someone has given you a set of scripts to create some new objects in your database. You ask them for their model, and they just look at you with that weird blank stare. “We…
A question that comes up fairly frequently revolves around how to see your errors when working with PL/SQL in SQL Developer. Most folks are probably working in the worksheet – this is the default editor for your connection. Let’s take a look at this sample program 14996840896606e23c9ceef_000000 If we were to create this procedure, we would probably expect some errors. So let’s run this in the Worksheet. I’m using Ctrl+Enter to execute this single statement.…
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that most people who use SQL Developer do not realize it has a fully-baked data modeling tool built into it. It’s not like we hide it, but we kind of hide it. To open the Data Modeler inside of SQL Developer, navigate to the View menu, and activate the Data Modeler Browser, like so – Once opened, you’ll see a new ‘Browser’ panel beneath your…
DBMS_SCHEDULER is awesome. It’s flexibility is remarkable. From setting up execution windows to remote execution to automatic notifications, there is a LOT to like. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect. For developers and DBAs, it can be a real pain to type out 2000+ characters to simply create a job. Being able to have such a fine level of control over the execution of a job has led to a very complex mechanism and infrastructure. This…
Binary Large Objects – otherwise known as BLOBs. You’ve also got large objects which are composed of text – that would be a CLOB. If you hear people talk about LOB storage, they are referring to how the data in these fields are stored – outside the space reserved for the regular segments (table data.) BLOBs are frequently used to store data such as pictures in the database. You can pretty much store anything in…
I’m lazy. If I can drive a screw with my cordless drill in 5 seconds vs 60 seconds, but have to walk to the garage to get it, I’ll pick the drill over the screwdriver every time. Probably because after I’m finished with that screw, my foreman will walk over and decide she wants the wall ornament moved a few micrometers to the left. I think the best developers are lazy. I say this, but…
Update for version 4.2 and higher. As often happens, my ideas for blog posts are provided by end users asking for help. Sometimes I know the answer, sometimes I don’t. This is one of the latter cases. Chet AKA @oraclenerd asked me: ‘Tell me how to find the preference in sqldev to make a tab 2 spaces?’ I knew it had to be in there somewhere. This is a pretty basic setting for any word…
Ever seen a table with so many columns you wonder if the designer had fallen out of the de-normalization tree and had hit every branch on the way down? Oracle currently allows a max of 1,000 columns per table. Please do not test this limit. Maybe you do need that many columns, but I doubt it. If you were to visualize this data model, imagine how easily you might be overwhelmed with all the white-noise,…
If you’re here to read another pro or con Klout rant, then please go somewhere else. I consider Mark Schaefer’s blog series to be the definitive take on the whole Klout business. I like Klout, and I use Klout. If you fall into this camp, please continue. Did you know that Klout has lists? You may have ignored them. And I wouldn’t blame you one bit. See, we’ve been trained to think that lists are…