Learning is not a spectator sport

Complete listing of posts

  • My stuff at OpenWorld

      Analytic Functions [UGF7455] Analytics have been with us since Oracle8i Database Release 2 (8.1.6), but they are still dramatically underused by application developers. This session looks at the syntax and usage of analytic functions and how they can supercharge your SQL skill set. SQL Tuning 101 [CON7457] It’s the age-old problem: the SQL statement Read more

  • 12c FETCH FIRST

    Tom Kyte’s latest magazine article talks about the new FETCH FIRST syntax in 12c. You can read about that at: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/issue-archive/2013/13-sep/o53asktom-1999186.html There’s a (quite valid) comment at the end of the article: “Note that in real life, you would use bind variables instead of hard-coded literals, so instead of using the number 5 as I Read more

  • Insync 13 Brisbane

    Just a quick note to let you know I’ll upload the slides in the next few days Read more

  • 30 chars just not enough…

    Sometimes even Oracle itself just can’t cope with the 30 character limit This from a M000 trace file 🙂 *** 2013-08-29 15:27:46.316 *** SESSION ID:(1020.7527) 2013-08-29 15:27:46.316 *** CLIENT ID:() 2013-08-29 15:27:46.316 *** SERVICE NAME:(SYS$BACKGROUND) 2013-08-29 15:27:46.316 *** MODULE NAME:(MMON_SLAVE) 2013-08-29 15:27:46.316 *** ACTION NAME:(Remote-Flush Slave Action) 2013-08-29 15:27:46.316 *** KEWROCISTMTEXEC – encountered error: (ORA-12899: Read more

  • Compressed partitions are not compressed tables

    So…you have got a big table and you’re lucky enough to have a partitioning license. So far, so good. Then you read about using compression to make your older, static data faster and smaller and you thought … “Cool!” Let’s see that in action – first here is my uncompressed partition table SQL> create table Read more

  • How big will my index be ?

    You’ve got a big table…you want to add an index. Will you have enough space ? Well, its not perfect but you can a reasonable approximation using DBMS_SPACE SQL> drop table T purge; Table dropped. SQL> create table T nologging as 2 select d.* from dba_objects d, 3 ( select 1 from dual connect by Read more

  • 12c invisible columns

    12c invisible columns

    As several bloggers have already pointed out, column order changes when you start playing with invisible columns, for example SQL> create table T ( c1 int, c2 int, c3 int ); Table created. SQL> desc T Name Null? Type —————————————– ——– ————— C1 NUMBER(38) C2 NUMBER(38) C3 NUMBER(38) SQL> alter table T modify c1 invisible; Read more

  • 12c ddl logging

    In new releases, its often the little things that really catch my attention. Like this one…. I love it SQL> alter system set enable_ddl_logging = true; System altered. SQL> create table t ( x int ); Table created. SQL> drop table t purge; Table dropped. SQL> host cat ddl_cdb12.log diag_adl:create table t ( x int Read more

  • 12c install on Windows

    This is not a complete how-to, because I do not think its warranted…you pretty much click Next Next Next (which in itself is a credit to the product) But one thing to note – on the few machines I’ve installed it on, the installer gets to 100% and then just sits there for a LONG Read more

  • from a friend…

    A friend was recently describing Agile to me…I stress, not Agile the principle, but Agile the way its been implemented at their site…I thought I’d share it with you 🙂 [warning: profanity] “A few years back I was struggling financially, but I needed a broom.  So I went down to the shop and got the Read more

  • Feeling raw about raw…

    Its been well documented for a while that Oracle were not going to allow raw devices in 12….but this still seems brutal. 8.1.12 Desupport for Raw Storage Devices Starting with Oracle Database 12c, block file storage on raw devices is not supported. You must migrate any data files stored on raw devices to Oracle ASM, Read more

  • Expunging the Expand all

    I’m sure many people love the collapsed form of the Oracle documentation, with the associated “Expand All” function… Me….I hate it.  The first thing I do is click “Expand All” and “Hide Navigation” to make it look like a standard html page and the Oracle documentation of old.. If you’re a dinosaur like me, then Read more