SQ..what you say?
Ok, that’s your que call for stop reading this post.
For those of you who are geeky enough, this’ll be in English since I’m guessing most people reading this post won’t be fluent in Swedish.
So, you just got that Oracle SQL Developer tool installed. Now what? There’s a tutorial, for sure. But it doesn’t really explain everything, for example how to execute a function (stored procedure) with in and out parameters, does it? Tried Google with no luck? I believe so.
The Oracle way is not as straightforward as you might think. Sure, if you can read the minds of the designer then you might jut be fine. However, if you’ve used Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (a handy tool, despite all) you would think it’s the same. Well, you are of course wrong.
First, find out where your SP/Function resides. Check the tree view, node “Procedure”. Found it, right? No? Aww..too bad. Well, turns out you have to look at the correct schema, then at the package name and finally the function name. An example would be myschema.mypackage.myfunction. Expand that tree and you just might get lucky today. From here on, it gets dirty. Double click the function name. This’ll take you into edit mode. Now, you can click the Run button which..well it won’t run the SP. Instead you get this handy, but confusing dialogue box. Click your appropriate SP (the window will show every function in that package) and voila, you have gotten yourself a template of the function call. Copy it to a new worksheet, replace the parameter placeholders and there you go. It’s as simple as…that.
Dear Oracle, why this fuzz?
Usability ftw.
Ever used Toad? No? Toad is better in serveral ways than Oracle SQL Developer but SQL Developer is free and Toad is costly.
If one used Toad with Oracle earlier, SQL Developer is easy getting used to.
On the other hand, switching to SQL Server wouldn’t be that simple for me – I took a brief look at SQL Server and found quite a difference to Oracle. We don’t use SQL Server at all after developing so many PL/SQL application packages which of course aren’t portable to different DB engines.
So my guess is, your trouble isn’t just being unfamiliar with SQL developer, but with Oracle, too. From my point of view this is no shame at all as both database engines’ worlds are quite a bit apart.
regards
elwood