Using Bind Variables is a post from: Database Geek Blog

LewisC’s An Expert’s Guide To Oracle Technology

Ok, I know you you’ve heard of them. Heck, in some cases, you’ve been beaten over the head with them. So why   aren’t you using them?

I’ve heard some people saying that it’s easier to code without bind variables. Really? Concatenating strings,   potentially with embedded quotes and/or varying formats, is easier than using bind variables?

I got an… Read the rest!

PL/JSON v0.6.2 Released is a post from: Database Geek Blog

It was pointed out to me that I had a few errors in the previous release.  Those have been fixed and the install should go a lot smoother now.  No additional functionality here, just bug fixes.  If you tweaked the previous release to install it, you don’t need this one.

As always, you can download the new code directly from the PL/JSON SourceForge page.

Change… Read the rest!

Oracle INFORMATION_SCHEMA is a post from: Database Geek Blog

From the Database Geek.

Part of the ANSI SQL standard calls for an INFORMATION_SCHEMA. This schema contains a standardized data dictionary that is (or is supposed to be) common across various databases. Most database vendors offer a native data dictionary and a sub-set INFORMATION_SCHEMA (called info schema from this point on). Oracle is the only major database vendor (that I know of) that doesn’t even offer… Read the rest!

PL/JSON v0.6 Released to SourceForge is a post from: Database Geek Blog

From the Database Geek.

PL/JSON v0.6.1 has now been released to Sourceforge.net. The reason for the .1 is that I forgot a dependency on the 0.6 release.

Anyway, PL/JSON can now create JSON via the API or through parsing a text string. The parser is implemented as a stand along package. That means you can write your own parser (or use an external… Read the rest!

Use a Pipelined Function to Select Source Code Arguments is a post from: Database Geek Blog

From the Database Geek.

I recently needed to query all of the arguments to the various stored procedures, functions, packaged objects and types. Oracle provides all of this information in the data dictionary in the ALL_PROCEDURES and ALL_ARGUMENTS views. The problem with this is that it’s kind of kludgey to suck out all of the pertinent data.

One problem… Read the rest!

Stupid Database Tricks – Shutdown the server from a stored procedure is a post from: Database Geek Blog

From the Database Geek.

I’m not even going to try to explain why I wrote this. Let’s just say that it comes in handy on occasion.

What this very simple procedure does is use DBMS_SCHEDULER to execute a shutdown command in windows. This could easily be adapted to Unix and/or Linux.

Use at your own risk. By… Read the rest!

ORA_Tweet Now Does Short URLs is a post from: Database Geek Blog

Paul Gallagher, of the Tardate blog, emailed me this morning (or I guess it was last night) and sent me some code to enhace ORA_Tweet.  He wrote a package to call out to an is.gd API to convert a long URL to a short URL.  The really cool thing is that he used a regular expression to find matches INSIDE the comment body. … Read the rest!

Calculating Business Days and Business Days Between is a post from: Database Geek Blog

From the Database Geek.

I recently had a requirement to populate the day dimension of a data mart (I won’t put all of the code here as it’s pretty large). That’s not that big deal but part of the requirement was to set several columns: BUSINESS_DAY_FLAG, BUSINESS_DAY_NO and BUSINESS_DAYS_REMAINING_NO.

• The BUSINESS_DAY_FLAG is Y is the date is MON-FRI and N

… Read the rest!

Private vs Public Global Variables is a post from: Database Geek Blog

Recently I posted an article about ORA_Tweet, an Oracle Twitter Client. I was asked by someone reading the code why I put several variables in the BODY of the package rather than the SPEC. The question was posed something like this:

Why not put the variables in the package spec where they are modifiable? That would involve less maintenance.

I specifically put… Read the rest!

JSON In (and out) of Oracle – JSON Data Type is a post from: Database Geek Blog

From the database geek.

Update March 29, 2009:  PL/JSON is now available as an open source project (MIT License).  Read the FAQ at http://oracleoss.com

Do you use JSON? Do you use Oracle? How would you like to use JSON in Oracle? How would you like to store it, generate it and read it? I am creating a new… Read the rest!

Ora_Tweet – Tweet From Oracle, A PL/SQL Twitter API is a post from: Database Geek Blog

Get the latest source from the ORA Tweet project page at sourceforge.

I had some free time this last Saturday night (after the family was all in bed) and I wanted to do a little mini-project. I don’t get to do enough PL/SQL anymore so I like to look for utilities and smaller fun things to code. While I… Read the rest!

My Introduction is a post from: Database Geek Blog

Welcome to my blog. My name is Lewis R Cunningham and I’m an Oracle geek. I love playing with Oracle, working with Oracle and sharing what I know about Oracle. In my travels as a consultant and employee, I have found that, in the Oracle world at least, managers, project leads, etc. often have to make decisions regarding their projects, employees and day to day operations… Read the rest!

When WHEN OTHERS is Evil is a post from: Database Geek Blog

From the Database Geek.

As regular readers of my blogs know, one of the things I am is a non-absolutist. I try to never say never or always. Take WHEN OTHERS. I have worked in places where using WHEN OTHERS was banned. I think that’s silly. Nothing wrong with a WHEN OTHERS that logs an error. Right?

We recently had a situation that… Read the rest!

Building a PL/SQL Code Parser (using PL/SQL), Part 3 is a post from: Database Geek Blog

From the Database-Geek.

Continuing with the parser, begun week in PL/SQL Parser Part 1 and PL/SQL Parser Part 2, today I am going to modify the code to account for keywords, operators and data. By data, I don’t mean strings. I mean anything not a keyword, not a comment and not an operator. Data may be a quoted string… Read the rest!

The Impact of Cloud Computing is a post from: Database Geek Blog

Does Cloud Computing Change Anything?

Cloud computing, aka utility computing, aka SaaS, aka PaaS, aka IaaS, etc. is definitely the buzz word du jour (or buzz word 2009).
Cloud computing is pretty much whatever a particular vendor wants it to be as long as it will allow them to be 100% buzz word compliant.
For the sake… Read the rest!