2023-02-07

IslandSQL Episode 2: All DML Statements

Introduction In the last episode, we build the initial version of IslandSQL. An Island grammar for SQL scripts covering select statements. In this blog post, we extend the grammar to handle the remaining DML statements. The full source code is available on GitHub and the binaries on Maven Central. Lexer Changes The […]
2023-02-04

IslandSQL Episode 1: Select Statement

Introduction An island grammar focuses only on a small part of a grammar. The island represents the small, interesting part and the sea the rest. In this blog post, I explain the components of an island grammar for SQL scripts named IslandSQL. In the first iteration, we focus on the select statement. Everything […]
2022-10-30

optimizer_secure_view_merging and plsql_declarations

The Original Problem A customer is currently upgrading some Oracle databases from 11.2 to 19c. One query was extremely slow on the new test system and my job was to find out why. The root cause was that the database parameter optimizer_secure_view_merging was set to a different value. In 19c true and […]
2022-10-11

Quoted Identifiers #JoelKallmanDay

Background and TL;DR Connor McDonald wrote a blog post named Cleaner DDL than DBMS_METADATA. Back then he asked me if it would be possible to let the formatter remove unnecessary double quotes from quoted identifiers. Yes, of course. Actually, the current version of the PL/SQL & SQL Formatter Settings does exactly that. […]
2022-09-25

DOAG2022 Highlights

Nobody knows what kind of restrictions we will experience later this year. That’s why the DOAG Conference + Exhibition 2022 took place in September instead of November. The organizers wanted an in-person event. While you can access some chosen content remotely an in-person event has a lot of advantages, like getting in […]
2022-07-31

Deleting Rows With Merge

The merge statement allows you to insert, update and delete rows in the target table in one go. This is great. However, the delete part does not work as expected. Is it a bug? No, it works exactly as documented. Nonetheless, I was not aware of this for years. Let’s take a […]
2022-07-31

Testing With utPLSQL – Made Easy With SQL Developer

Nowadays, everything is about automation. Software testing is no exception. After an introduction, we will create and run utPLSQL tests with Oracle SQL Developer for a fictitious user story. Our tests will cover a PL/SQL package, a virtual column, two database triggers and a view. The full code samples can be found […]
2022-07-17

plscope-utils for SQL Developer 1.0 – What’s New?

Introduction PL/Scope is an SDK for source code analysis. It is available since Oracle Database 11g Release 1 and has been significantly improved in 12c Release 2. plscope-utils for SQL Developer is a SQL Developer extension that simplifies the compilation with PL/Scope, visualizes PL/Scope information under a PL/Scope node in the Connections […]
2022-01-14

Finding Wrong Hints

Introduction I have used the Oracle Database for many years. And I use hints. For experiments, but also in production code. There are cases when you know more than the Oracle Database. For example about the cardinality of a data source or the number of result rows to process or the number […]
2021-12-29

GraalVM Native Image – First Impressions

Introduction A native image is an operating system-specific executable file. You can build such an image for basically every application running on a Java virtual machine. This approach promises faster start-up times and lower resource consumption. This makes it appealing for serverless computing, auto-scaling platforms and command-line tools. I gained some impressions […]