Oracle

Retrieving an Oracle database result set sorted can take longer than retrieving it unsorted ????

Spot the 'error' in the blog title? Do you expect a DBMS to take longer to return a result set ordered or unordered? Ask yourself the ...Read more

Oracle Virtual Column with Regex & Primary Key

I wrote this trivial piece of test code. I wanted it to work. It is Oracle. I am surprised it worked. No triggers, stored ...Read more

SELECT * FROM TABLE(Oracle REF CURSOR)

Below is the most trivial of C# applications that generates an enumerable anonymous class collection, and spits out the content to the console. ...Read more

Oracle database version 13ß anyone?

I have been working with Oracle since version 8i, version 8.1.6 to be exact. Version 8.1.7 was the version number that finally worked. ...Read more

Junk DNA – Junk Oracle, part 0000002

Most high level programming languages implement a selection control mechanism whereby a variable can be used to control program execution via. a multiway ...Read more

Junk DNA – Junk Oracle, part 0000001

Not so many years ago, junk DNA was thought of as the DNA remnants from some evolutionary path, perhaps where we had fewer ...Read more

Oracle MERGE: Elegantly updating to a sequential version number

It is often important to have a sequential version number (or other value such a credit note or invoice number) associated with piece of ...Read more

Oracle MERGE: Elegantly updating KVP lookups in a database

Storing key-value-pair (KVP) look-up information in a database is pretty routine stuff. There's normally a simple table with a key and a value, as ...Read more

ANSI SQL/Foundation

I have believed for some time that the SQL FROM clause is optional, that is optional from the standpoint of ANSI/IEC/ISO standards, not from ...Read more

Database table column aliasing, and coding standards

Here's a question I posed to myself recently, during a database code maintenance/upgrade cycle. Can adding a column to the underlying database table break ...Read more