Archive for the 'Steven Feuerstein's Blog' Category
Posted May 10, 2010
I recently received this question from a PL/SQL developer:
"What is the maximum size of a PL/SQL procedure?"
The answer is interesting: there is not a maximum size, per se. Instead, the limitation has to do with the maximum number of DIANA nodes your program generates in the compilation process.
DIANA is an intermediate language produced and used by the compiler. DIANA standards for “Descriptive Intermediate Attributed Notation for Ada" - and reminds us that PL/SQL is based on Ada, a programming language originally developed for the U.S. Department of Defense.
Posted April 13, 2010
"Invoker rights, what's that?" you may be asking.
That wouldn't surprise me, greatly, though one might consider it a bit odd because the invoker rights feature of PL/SQL was added in Oracle8i - many years ago!
So I will first offer a brief overview of invoker rights, why you'd use it, how you use it. Then I will introduce one of the major challenges with invoker rights. Finally, I offer a utility that can help you overcome that challenge.
Posted March 29, 2010
I have certainly learned a lot over the years from other authors, and I thought I would share with you my fairly eclectic collection of favorite books (those that have informed my programming, in any case).
Posted June 23, 2008
You learn something new every day, right? Well, I certainly do (more or less). Even about PL/SQL, about which I am sure many people think I already know everything. Far from it.
In fact, I learned just last week from the PL/SQL Product Manager, Bryn Llewellyn, that his recommendation regarding cursor FOR loops and bulk collect is different from mine – and for a very good reason.
Posted June 4, 2008
Oracle doesn't make it terribly easy to run operating system commands from within a PL/SQL block. I suppose that's understandable, given that PL/SQL is an embedded database-oriented language. Still, developers do ask me on a regular basis about how they can do this.
Posted April 17, 2008
As many of my readers likely know by now, I have been working for the past several years on the Quest Code Tester development effort.
Code Tester is the most powerful PL/SQL test automation tool available. You describe the expected behavior of your programs and Code Tester generates your test code, which can then be run from the UI or via a script. With Code Tester, you can build comprehensive regression tests and even implement the Test Driven Development methodology.
Posted April 10, 2008
A few months ago, I posted on this blog an explanation of how to use Toad's Code Templates to standardize development and improve productivity. I included an XML document that contains over 20 templates that I thought you might find useful. I also asked my readers to produce XML transformations so that the XML document could be "output" in the format that Toad recognizes (and SQL Navigator as well).
Posted March 17, 2008
Collaborate08, annual conference of the International Oracle User Group, and several other national and international user groups, will be held in Denver this year, from April 13th to the 16th. I am going to present three papers, including (for the first time) Weird PL/SQL. I thought you might enjoy reading about some of the weirdnesses of PL/SQL in my ToadWorld blog, so here's an excerpt from the beginning of my whitepaper.
Posted February 4, 2008
Just how popular is PL/SQL? And how many PL/SQL developers are there "out there"? These are surprisingly hard questions to answer. Officially and even unofficially, Oracle Corporation's point people on PL/SQL do not have any idea (or refuse to say) how many PL/SQL developers there are.
Posted January 7, 2008
You will find below an excerpt from my latest publication: the 2
nd edition of
Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices. This edition is a complete rewrite of the 1
st edition. I decided that since software is still, for the most part, written by humans, I would create a cast of characters who write the software I reference and critique in this book.
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