mcgyver5: TOAD

Tue, 22 Apr 2003 14:57:17 GMT

Q: How do I make the SQL screen in TOAD remember more history of queries?

A: There is a setting in TOAD Options --> SQL Editor called "# of SQL Statements to save "....

Q: How do I click a button and have TOAD turn my query into Java Code?

A: There is a setting in TOAD Options --> SQL Editor called "Make Code Format" and from there you can chose Java, VB, C++, Delphi or PERL

Q: How do I make the SQL History list in Toad show more text of each query?

Q: How do I make the dropdown list labeled "SQL Contains:" remember my past searches?

Q: How can I make a long running query in TOAD run in the background so I can use TOAD for other things?

A: There is a setting in TOAD Options --> SQL Editor called "Process Queries in threads/ allow queries to be cancled. Check this and you will be able to open other windows in TOAD.

Tue, 22 Apr 2003 13:12:52 GMT

I went to the Twin Cities Oracle Users Group last Wednesday. It was very valuable. A lot of it was writing down terms the presenters threw out so that I could look them up later. Thomas Kyte of Oracle's Ask Tom presented about Oracle Performance for about two hours. The most valuable thing I learned from him is the importance keeping stats over time so you can document performance changes. He spoke highly of three performance monitoring tools: statspack, tkprof and autotrace. I would recommend seeing this guy speak if you ever get the chance.

The other speaker was John Goodhue of the local group. He gave a great presentation that meshed nicely with Tom's. He focused on row chaining. I had never considered row chaining before, but it works like this: you have a block in Oracle that contains many records. The block is stuffed full of records, as a matter of fact and many of those records are kind of empty. That means they might have an ID field filled in and maybe a customer name, but many of the fields are empty. When the those fields get filled in later, the records don't fit in the block any more. Then Oracle has to place those records in new blocks and this impacts performance. You can prevent this from happening by setting the pctfree parameter to something greater than 10, which is the default. That tells Oracle to make the blocks bigger. The other thing I got from his presentation is that the famous buffer cache hit ratio that we all worry about can be misleading at best. There are lots of other statistics that are more important. This topic is a research project in itself and I won't try to recreate all the stuff I learned here (can't read my notes) but the message is that these user groups are worth attending. There were about 200 people there.

Fri, 11 Apr 2003 14:25:55 GMT

My experience with sql*loader might be helpful to some one else, so I posted the procedure here. I also have the O'Reilly book "Oracle SQL*Loader The Definitive Guide" It is a good book and if you want to borrow it (and you work for the MPCA or DNR) , let me know.

Wed, 02 Apr 2003 22:04:17 GMT

Q: What does the red X mean to the left of some of my views?

A: It means this view needs to be recompiled. When you recompile it, it may show some errors that need fixin. Views may still work even though they need to be recompiled.

Mon, 24 Mar 2003 21:21:23 GMT

Q: Using Toad, How can I import data from one schema into another?

A: Easy! Just have both schemas open, go to the sql editor and you can refer to the tables of any schema with the dnr.tablename syntax. You can join tables this way, etc.

Fri, 21 Mar 2003 17:57:50 GMT

Q: When I create a trigger in TOAD using code like the following:

CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER NEW_BP

BEFORE INSERT ON BP

FOR EACH ROW

BEGIN

SELECT B_SEQ.nextval INTO :new.BP_ID from DUAL;

END;

I get this stupid dialog box named "variables" where it wants me to give a value to the variable :NEW which isn't a variable at all.

A) If you execute this as a script(by pressing the 'execute as script' button) instead of a statement, you will not get that stupid dialog box.

Fri, 21 Mar 2003 17:47:29 GMT

Q: I wish I could show all the column comments in the column tab aligned with their respective columns instead of down below where I can't see them all at the same time.

A: Right click anywhere in your schema browser and select the "Show Column Comments in List" option and you will see all the comments all the time

Fri, 21 Mar 2003 14:11:04 GMT

Q: How do I issue a commit in toad via a keyboard shortcut?

A: Right-click on the menu bar and select "menu shortcuts". In the menu shortcut customization dialog, scroll down and select database commit. Once it is selected, you can define a shortcut by pressing Control with some other key (I used CTRL-K)

Wed, 19 Mar 2003 18:26:02 GMT

Problem: Toad suddenly stopped showing me my list of current windows under the Windows Menu in my menubar?

Solution: (from Toad Release notes) Right-click over the toolbar and choose Customize. Go to the Commands tab, choose "Window", and drag "(List of Current windows)" back into the Window menu.