PL/Scope – Did you know that?

30 de November de 201814 de September de 2018matheusdba Leave a comment

Hi All!
I decided to make a serie of posts with really quick notes about some really awesome features we simply don’t use. Today’s one is about PL/Scope.
You can see all posts in this serie in my page of posts and some others more.

Ready? Here it goes:

PL/Scope

PL/Scope is a tool that gathers information about user defined identifiers at compile time. Collection of PL/Scope data is controlled by the PLSCOPE_SETTINGS parameter, which has a default setting of “IDENTIFIERS:NONE”. To enable collection, switch value to “IDENTIFIERS:ALL”. The data is stored in the SYSAUX tablespace, this space needs to be well planned and managed..

The PL/Scope data is available from the %_IDENTIFIERS views. The following query displays data gathered during the compilation of a test procedure:

COLUMN name FORMAT A30
SELECT LPAD(' ', level*2, ' ') || name AS name, type, usage, usage_id, line, col
FROM   user_identifiers
START WITH usage_context_id = 0
CONNECT BY PRIOR usage_id = usage_context_id;

NAME                           TYPE               USAGE         USAGE_ID       LINE        COL
------------------------------ ------------------ ----------- ---------- ---------- ----------
  TEST_PLSCOPE                 PROCEDURE          DECLARATION          1          1         11
    TEST_PLSCOPE               PROCEDURE          DEFINITION           2          1         11
      P_IN                     FORMAL IN          DECLARATION          3          1         25
      L_VAR                    VARIABLE           DECLARATION          4          2          3
      L_VAR                    VARIABLE           ASSIGNMENT           5          4          3
        P_IN                   FORMAL IN          REFERENCE            6          4         12
      L_VAR                    VARIABLE           ASSIGNMENT           7          6          3
        L_VAR                  VARIABLE           REFERENCE            8          6         12

8 rows selected.

(this script was taken from here)

Some additional information about it: The documentation states that some identifiers will not listed unless the STANDARD package is recompiled after the PLSCOPE_SETTINGS parameter is set properly. However there is some opening community discussions about invalidation of basic procedures not being revalidated again, even on use of urlrp procedure. This way, we don’t recommend to use it directly on Production environment without validating before in an equivalent environment and taking all caution measures as possible.

Hope you enjoy it. Cheers!

Oracle SQL: Aggregate List – LISTAGG

23 de November de 201814 de September de 2018matheusdba Leave a comment

Know this command?

I think it’s very useful, but not so often I see that in use… More about it:

It was introduced in Oracle 11g Release 2, as an analytic function to make the life easier fot the PLSQL Dev, specially when working to aggregate strings. The nice thing about this function is it also allows us to order the elements in the concatenated list. If you are using 11g Release 2 you should use this function for string aggregation.

In case WM_CONCAT is in use for this end, be aware that WM_CONCAT is an undocumented function and as such is not supported by Oracle for user applications (MOS Note ID 1336219.1). Also, WM_CONCAT has been removed from 12c onward, once it was completely replaced by LISTAGG.

More info and examples can be found here: https://oracle-base.com/articles/12c/listagg-function-enhancements-12cr2

Hope you enjoy it. Cheers!

PLSQL: Which code is taking longer?

16 de November de 201814 de September de 2018matheusdba Leave a comment

So you have a slow process calling several PLSQL Codes, including Procedures, Functions and etc, but don’t know what is taking longer?

Your problems has ended…

In Oracle 11gR1 was introduced the PL/SQL Hierarchical Profiler to help developers by providing hierarchical profiler data analysis for PL/SQL programs.

From Oracle base:
“The hierarchical profiler consists of the DBMS_HPROF package, which feels similar to the DBMS_PROFILER and DBMS_TRACE packages, and the plshprof command line utility to converts the profile information into HTML format.”

For example, we can set a profiler for procedure proc_example_1 and check in all calls and related statistics:

BEGIN
  DBMS_HPROF.start_profiling (
    location => 'ORACLE_DIR',
    filename => 'prof.txt');

  proc_example_1(p_number => 10);

  DBMS_HPROF.stop_profiling;
END;
/

And to see results, a simple output is:

COLUMN owner FORMAT A20
COLUMN module FORMAT A20
COLUMN type FORMAT A20
COLUMN function FORMAT A25
SELECT symbolid,
       owner,
       module,
       type,
       function
FROM   dbmshp_function_info
WHERE  runid = 1
ORDER BY symbolid;

  SYMBOLID OWNER                MODULE               TYPE                 FUNCTION
---------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------------
         1 TEST                 proc_example_1       PROCEDURE            proc_example_1
         2 TEST                 proc_example_2       PROCEDURE            proc_example_2
         3 TEST                 proc_example_3       PROCEDURE            proc_example_3
         4 SYS                  DBMS_HPROF           PACKAGE BODY         STOP_PROFILING
    5 TEST                 proc_example_3       PROCEDURE            __static_sql_exec_line5

5 rows selected.

Which can also be seen with this nice SQL from Oracle Base (Tim Hall):

SET LINESIZE 500 PAGESIZE 1000
COLUMN name FORMAT A100
SELECT RPAD(' ', (level-1)*2, ' ') || a.name AS name,
       a.subtree_elapsed_time,
       a.function_elapsed_time,
       a.calls
FROM   (SELECT fi.symbolid,
               pci.parentsymid,
               RTRIM(fi.owner || '.' || fi.module || '.' || NULLIF(fi.function,fi.module), '.') AS name,
               NVL(pci.subtree_elapsed_time, fi.subtree_elapsed_time) AS subtree_elapsed_time,
               NVL(pci.function_elapsed_time, fi.function_elapsed_time) AS function_elapsed_time,
               NVL(pci.calls, fi.calls) AS calls
        FROM   dbmshp_function_info fi
               LEFT JOIN dbmshp_parent_child_info pci ON fi.runid = pci.runid AND fi.symbolid = pci.childsymid
        WHERE  fi.runid = 1
        AND    fi.module != 'DBMS_HPROF') a
CONNECT BY a.parentsymid = PRIOR a.symbolid
START WITH a.parentsymid IS NULL;


NAME                                                SUBTREE_ELAPSED_TIME FUNCTION_ELAPSED_TIME      CALLS
--------------------------------------------------- -------------------- --------------------- ----------
TEST.proc_example_1                                                31262                    31          1
  TEST.proc_example_2                                              31231                   133         10
    TEST.proc_example_3                                            31098                  3241        100
      TEST.proc_example_3.__static_sql_exec_line5                  27857                 27857       1000

Cheers!

Increase PLSQL Performance with SIMPLE_INTEGER Data Type

2 de November de 201814 de September de 2018matheusdba Leave a comment

Did you know the SIMPLE_INTEGER datatype is a subtype of the PLS_INTEGER datatype and can increase the speed of integer arithmetic in natively compiled code as well as in interpreted code?

Nice, right?
This is an 11g feature, so not that new… Have a look and use it!

Check below for datatype declaration example:

PLS_INTEGER:

var_old_fashioned PLS_INTEGER := 0;

SIMPLE_INTEGER:

var_new_way SIMPLE_INTEGER := 0;

Cheers!

Oracle: Easily Decoding ROWID

5 de October de 201814 de September de 2018matheusdba Leave a comment

Hi all,
Recently I needed to decode the rowid so I could find some information about it, I found this bit of code that I thought useful:

SET SERVEROUTPUT ON
DECLARE
v_rid VARCHAR2(20) ;
v_type NUMBER;
v_obj NUMBER;
v_rfno NUMBER;
v_bno NUMBER;
v_rno NUMBER;
BEGIN
v_rid := 'AAAAASAABAAAADxAAb';
dbms_output.put_line('Row_ID = "'||v_rid||'"');
dbms_rowid.rowid_info(CHARTOROWID(v_rid), v_type, v_obj, v_rfno, v_bno, v_rno);
IF v_type = 0 THEN
dbms_output.put_line('RowID Type -> Restricted');
ELSE dbms_output.put_line('RowID Type -> Extended');
END IF;
dbms_output.put_line('Object ID = "'||v_obj||'"');
dbms_output.put_line('Relative File Number = "'||v_rfno||'"');
dbms_output.put_line('Block Number = "'||v_bno||'"');
dbms_output.put_line('Row Number = "'||v_rno||'"');
END;
/

Note that I have hard-coded the rowid but it is relatively easy to either edit this or indeed to incorporate this into a procedure.

Here’s the sample output

Row_ID = "AAAAASAABAAAADxAAb"
RowID Type -> Extended
Object ID = "18"
Relative File Number = "1"
Block Number = "241"
Row Number = "27"

Hope this helps!
Cheers!

PL/SQL Generalized Invocation

21 de September de 201814 de September de 2018matheusdba Leave a comment

Did you know we have that since 11g? The generalized invocation allows a subtype to invoke a method of a parent type (supertype) using the following syntax:

(SELF AS supertype_name).method_name

Check the example below to understand it. First, creating original type:

CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE type_test AS OBJECT (MEMBER FUNCTION return_text RETURN VARCHAR2) NOT FINAL;
/

CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE BODY type_test AS
MEMBER FUNCTION return_text RETURN VARCHAR2 IS
BEGIN RETURN 'This is the original text.'; END;
END;
/

And now creating a subtype of this object, which adds a new attribute and method as well as overriding the member’s function.

CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE subtype_test UNDER type_test (OVERRIDING MEMBER FUNCTION return_text RETURN VARCHAR2);
/

CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE BODY subtype_test AS
OVERRIDING MEMBER FUNCTION return_text RETURN VARCHAR2 IS
BEGIN RETURN (self AS type_test).return_text || ' This is an additional subtype text.'; END;
END;
/

And when calling:

SET SERVEROUTPUT ON
DECLARE
my_subtype subtype_test;
BEGIN
DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line(my_subtype.show_attributes);
END;
/
This is the original text. This is an additional subtype text.

A type can invoke the member functions of any parent type in this way, regardless of the depth of the inheritance.

Pretty nice, right?
Cheers!

WHEN OTHERS -> NULL: Hidding your PLSQL Errors?

15 de August de 201822 de June de 2018matheusdba Leave a comment

Are you using WHEN OTHERS -> NULL to hide your PLSQL errors?
Don’t be so sure…

WHEN OTHERS exception handlers that do nothing and don’t raise errors using RAISE or RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR can often hide code failures that result in hard to identify bugs.

To avoid this, a new PL/SQL compiler warning was added in 11g to identify those kind of situations. Check example below:

SQL> ALTER SESSION SET plsql_warnings = 'enable:all';

Session altered.

SQL> CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE warning_test AS
  2  BEGIN
  3    RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR(-20000, 'This is an Exception!');
  4  EXCEPTION
  5    WHEN OTHERS THEN
  6      NULL;
  7  END;
  8  /

SP2-0804: Procedure created with compilation warnings

SQL> SHOW ERRORS
Errors for PROCEDURE OTHERS_TEST:

LINE/COL ERROR
-------- -----------------------------------------------------------------
5/8      PLW-06009: procedure "WARNING_TEST" OTHERS handler does not end in
         RAISE or RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR

Nice, right?!

There are also some other warnings improvements like:

New NO_DATA_NEEDED Predefined Exception: ORA-06548: For parallel access and pipelined table functions the caller of a pipelined function does not need more rows to be produced by the pipelined function.

Warnings:

Severe
– 5018 – omitted optional AUTHID clause
– 5018 – omitted optional AUTHID clause
– 5019 – deprecated language element
– 5020 – parameter name must be identified
Informative
– 6016 – native code generation turned off (size/time)
– 6017 – operation will raise an exception
– 6018 – an infinity or NaN value computed or used

Cheers!

Guru99: PL/SQL 101 Completely Free!

3 de February de 20183 de February de 2018matheusdba Leave a comment

Hey all!
Just passing by today to share something I found really inetresting, and the best: it’s all free!
Do you know Guru99?

It’s a preety nice repository with lots of free tutorials and guides for PLSQL, SQL and several other languages, plus some other IT-related knowledge, like Big Data, PMP and etc.

It’s not rare to have people asking me “How to Start learning SQL” or saying “All material (including grepora :D) is too much specific, we don’t have good general documentation”.
Even Oracle having a pretty nice documentation on the products and features, general concepts are usually forgotten. Aaaaand, now I have something to link on those cases! 😀

Having a look on Guru99, First I found this guide PL/SQL First Program: Hello World, including detailed steps on:
– How to access SQL* Plus
– Connecting to Database
– How to write a simple program using PL/SQL
– Declaring and usage of variables in program
– Commenting Codes

Then found an entire category PL/SQL Tutorials. Talking to Alex (Editor), seems over 120 hours were spent on it. And they were well spent, the material is really very easy to read and understand. Chapters on this Course are:
1. Introduction to PL/SQL
2. Blocks in PL/SQL
3. PL SQL First Program: Hello World
4. PL/SQL Data Types
5. Complex Data Types in PL/SQL
6. PL/SQL Decision Making Statements
7. Loops in PL/SQL
8. Subprograms: Procedures and Functions in PL/SQL
9. Exception Handling in PL/SQL
10. SQL in PL/SQL
11. Packages in PL/SQL
12. Triggers in PL/SQL
13. Object Types in PL/SQL
14. Dynamic SQL in PL/SQL
15. Nested Blocks in Pl/Sql
16. PL/SQL Identifiers

Continue reading →

11g Named and Mixed Notation in PL/SQL Subprogram Invocations

31 de January de 20183 de January de 2018matheusdba Leave a comment

Hi All!
I was reviewing some features in Oracle and, basically, every single time I review them I find something new. Seems Oracle Databases’ features are near to infinite and we frequently find some that can really add value to our solutions.

So I decided to make a serie of posts with really quick notes about each one of them.
You can see all posts in this serie in my page of posts and some others more.

Ready? Here it goes:

Named and Mixed Notation in PL/SQL Subprogram Invocations

Prior to 11g, PL/SQL invoked from SQL had to have its parameters passed using positional notation, making it difficult to determine the meaning of parameters. Oracle 11g allows positional, named and mixed notation to be used when calling PL/SQL from SQL. Check example below:

SQL> -- Positional Notation.
SQL> SELECT add_func(10, 20) FROM dual;

add_func(10,20)
----------------
              30

SQL> -- Mixed Notation.
SQL> SELECT add_func(10, p_value_2 => 20) FROM dual;

add_func(10,P_VALUE_2=>20)
---------------------------
                         30

SQL> -- Named Notation.
SQL> SELECT add_func(p_value_1 => 10, p_value_2 => 20) FROM dual;

add_func(P_VALUE_1=>10,P_VALUE_2=>20)
--------------------------------------
                                    30

Cheers!

EM Event: Metrics “Current Open Cursors Count” is at %

27 de September de 201727 de September de 2017matheusdba Leave a comment

Hi all,
This is simple right?

Some dev is forgetting to close the cursors. 🙂
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I couldn’t find better reference than this article by Tech on the Net.

As DBA, we can identify the application schema which is causing the issue by the following: Continue reading →