What is the last day of last month and more

To get the first day of the month last month use this:
select TRUNC(ADD_MONTHS(SYSDATE, - 1), 'MONTH')FROM DUAL

To get the last day of the month, use this:
select LAST_DAY(ADD_MONTHS(SYSDATE, - 1))FROM DUAL

What is the name of the Schedule that is running a Process Flow

One of my main irks with Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB)

One of my main irks with Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB) is the lame messages you receive. I mean seriously, they can leave you with a sense of what hell does that mean and frustration to the point of pulling your hair out.

My case in point today was I had a function with a parameter that returns back a number that is to be used in a wait activity (figure 1). Sound simple enough doesn’t? Wrong. So you can see in figure2 the parameter for the function. And in Figure 3 you can see the binding of wait time to this return parameter.

figure 1

figure 2




















figure 3

Validation of the map was ok. I then deployed the map but that failed. The reason?

GEAP_WRK CreateError RPE-02040: Internal error: P_NWAIT_BETWEEN_EXTRACTS cannot be converted to a constant value. Please correct the value. If the problem persists then please contact Oracle Support with the stack trace and details on how to reproduce it.

See what I mean, this helps no one understand what the problem is or how to fix it. Fortunately I have run across this problem before so I pretty much know what to do. In this case you need to create a process flow variable and bind the parameter to this value. Then you need to bind the wait time property to this variable.

Error messages when there are no errors in OWB

It appears that oracle warehouse builder (OWB) will tell you have an error even though there is no error. Case in point, while creating a process flow, I had a Stored Procedure from a package returning back a Boolean value. I use this return value to determine the transition to the next activity as seen in figure 1.
















figure 1



I set the complex condition "PFUNC_RACS_AVAILABLE"."P_BAVAILABLE" for end with success. I then set the end with errors with NOT "PFUNC_RACS_AVAILABLE"."P_BAVAILABLE" . Finally I set no condition for end with warnings. But when I did a validation on the condition, OWB said I had an error in the expression (figure2). The error was PLS-00530: Illegal type used for object.
















figure 2



Now since I have been working in OWB for a while, I have learned oracle not only gives bad error messages, but incorrect ones as well. Therefore I question most messages from Oracle and decided to test the process flow to make sure. In the figure below, the test shows the flow did work correctly. The second test I simply reversed the conditions between success and errors.









figure 3



As another test I checked the results in the control center to see what was returned from the procedure. Sure enough, a Boolean value was returned. I even reversed what was return to make sure I would be getting a false value (see figure 4).











figure 4

q used to define a quote delimiter for PL/SQL

I don't know why I can never remember the 'q' for a quote delimiter, so I am putting it here for myself so I can easily find it.



q'';

DECLARE
s1 VARCHAR2(20);
s2 VARCHAR2(20);
s3 VARCHAR2(20);
BEGIN
s1 := q'[Isn't this cool]';
s2 := q'"Isn't this cool"';
s3 := q'|Isn't this cool|';

dbms_output.put_line(s1);
dbms_output.put_line(s2);
dbms_output.put_line(s3);
END;


source: http://www.psoug.org/reference/string_func.html

EVAL function

In several other languages I have written in, there is a native function that will evaluate an expression. Unfortunately, Oracle does not have this natively. From another web site I found a simple way to achieve this function.


create or replace function eval (expr varchar2)
return varchar2
as

ret varchar2(4000);

begin
execute immediate 'begin :result := ' || expr || '; end;'
using out ret;
return ret;
end;


source: http://www.adp-gmbh.ch/blog/2005/may/5.html

So, you want to create a zip file in oracle?

My current project has me building a generic based extraction process in Oracle using OWB (Oracle Warehouse Builder). One of the issues is when an extract is so large it really needs to be compressed before any FTP activity occurs. The good news is you can. YEAH!!!!
The approach I took was utilizing Java, which can be used in Oracle. Being more of a C# developer, using Java is not that much of a stretch, but the debugging can be a real pain. I used SQL Developer and JDeveloper to create and Debug the code, which really gives poor error messages, if any at all. I am sure there must be a better way, and I will take some time in the future to find out how. Below is the code I used to take a path and filename and create a zip file in the same folder. There are a lot of write ups on this subject, but for me the best was located at http://www.javafaq.nu/java-example-code-224.html

You simple run this in SQLDeveloper to create a Java Class in the user schema. I place comments in the code to tell you what is happening. One of the things to really point out is the issue of parameters with an IN OUT. There is a great write up that helped me at http://www.cs.umbc.edu/help/oracle8/java.815/a64686/03_pub3.htm

create or replace and compile java source named "CreateZipFile"
as
import java.util.zip.ZipOutputStream;
import java.util.zip.ZipEntry;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.*;


public class CreateZipFile
{
public static void DoCreateZipFile( String pPathAndFileName ,String[] pErrorMessage ,int[] pReturn)
{

int ReturnResults = 0;

String oZipFileName ;
byte[] buf = new byte[1024];

FileInputStream FIS = null;
ZipOutputStream ZOS = null;
try
{
//Create the path and file name for the zip file
oZipFileName = pPathAndFileName.substring(0,pPathAndFileName.lastIndexOf(".")) + ".zip";

// build the file objects
File oInFile = new File( pPathAndFileName);
File oOutFile = new File( oZipFileName);

//Create the output zip streams
FileOutputStream FOS = new FileOutputStream(oOutFile);
ZOS = new ZipOutputStream(FOS);

//Set the highest level of compression
ZOS.setLevel(9);

//Create an entry for the single file we are zipping up
ZOS.putNextEntry(new ZipEntry( oInFile.getName()));

//create the infile input stream
FIS = new FileInputStream( oInFile);

//Read in chucks of the input file and insert into the output file
int len;
while((len = FIS.read(buf)) > 0)
{
ZOS.write(buf, 0, len);
}

//close up the single entry
ZOS.closeEntry();

//Close in and out files
FIS.close();
ZOS.close();


}

catch (Exception e)
{
ReturnResults = 1;
pErrorMessage[0] = e.getMessage();
FIS.close();
ZOS.close();
}
finally
{
return ;
}
}
}



Now that you have created and installed the Java code, congrads, you can now zip a file,… almost. First you must create a spec for this method via an Oracle Procedure or Function.


create or replace
PROCEDURE jproc_Zipfile(pPathAndFileName in varchar2, pErrorMessage in out varchar2, pReturn in out NUMBER)
as language
java name 'CreateZipFile.DoCreateZipFile(java.lang.String,java.lang.String[],int[]) ';


Now that you have a spec for this method, congrads, you can now zip a file,… not quite yet. Next you have to give your user permission to interact with the file structure.

BEGIN
DBMS_JAVA.grant_permission('GEAP_PROJECT', 'java.io.FilePermission', 'J:\GEAP_EXTRACTS\', 'read ,write, execute, delete');
END;


Now that you have give your user permission, congrads, you can now zip a file,… finally (make sure about OS file permissions as well).

DECLARE
PPATHANDFILENAME VARCHAR2(200);
PERRORMESSAGE VARCHAR2(200);
PRETURN NUMBER;
BEGIN
PPATHANDFILENAME := 'C:\TEMP\danny2.csv';
PERRORMESSAGE := NULL;
PRETURN := NULL;

JPROC_ZIPFILE(
PPATHANDFILENAME => PPATHANDFILENAME,
PERRORMESSAGE => PERRORMESSAGE,
PRETURN => PRETURN
);
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('PERRORMESSAGE = ' PERRORMESSAGE);
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('PRETURN = ' PRETURN);
END;


There are a couple of caveats to point out at this point. To the best that I can tell, you cannot add a password protection using just the Java library, it just isn’t there. From what I am readying, this has been on the request list now for eight years.
Secondly, when I was creating this, I was in a windows environment. If you happen to test by hard coding the path such as 'C:\TEMP\danny2.csv', remember Java required double slashes, such as 'C:\\TEMP\\danny2.csv'

Hopefully I was able to hit on all the issues I ran across and that this article will help you. It’s Friday, and almost Beer time.

Danny

EXPDP with QUERY

So I played with this for a couple of days before getting it to work for me... When using the QUERY clause in a EXPDP/IMPDP that includes dates you should not wrap them in a TO_DATE. I tried using a condition like below

QUERY=CLM_HDR:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= TO_DATE('04302001','MMDDYYYY')"

EXPDP would give me an error stating that a right parenthesis was missing, but it was obviously not. I did finally figure out that it wanted the dates in the default date format. So by changing it to this

QUERY=CLM_HDR:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001'"

It worked.

Here is my entire parameter file used for the export job I was attempting.

DIRECTORY=datapump_dir
DUMPFILE=102000-042001_CLM_ARCHIVE_%U.dmp
LOGFILE=102000-042001_CLM_ARCHIVE.log
CONTENT=ALL
FILESIZE=2G
INCLUDE=TABLE:"IN ('CLM_HDR','CLM_HDR_ADDL_EOB','CLM_HDR_ADJ_VD','CLM_HDR_COND_CD',
'CLM_HDR_DIAG','CLM_HDR_HCFA1500_DENTAL','CLM_HDR_HH_CERT',
'CLM_HDR_ICD','CLM_HDR_OCC_CD','CLM_HDR_OCC_SPN','CLM_HDR_PREV_LOCN','CLM_HDR_PYR',
'CLM_HDR_RA','CLM_HDR_RLTD_HIST','CLM_HDR_UB92','CLM_HDR_VALU_CD','CLM_HDR_XOVR',
'CLM_LI','CLM_LI_AMB','CLM_LI_ATTACH','CLM_LI_BSE_CHNG','CLM_LI_EXC','CLM_LI_TPL_BLNG')"
QUERY=CLM_HDR:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_HDR_ADDL_EOB:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_HDR_ADJ_VD:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_HDR_COND_CD:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_HDR_DIAG:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_HDR_HCFA1500_DENTAL:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_HDR_HH_CERT:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_HDR_ICD:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_HDR_OCC_CD:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_HDR_OCC_SPN:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_HDR_PREV_LOCN:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_HDR_PYR:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_HDR_RA:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_HDR_RLTD_HIST:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_HDR_UB92:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_HDR_VALU_CD:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_HDR_XOVR:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_LI:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_LI_AMB:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_LI_ATTACH:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_LI_BSE_CHNG:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_LI_EXC:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')",
CLM_LI_TPL_BLNG:"WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001' AND TCN_NUM NOT IN (SELECT TCN_NUM FROM ODS2.LIFETIME_CLMS WHERE HDR_PD_DT <= '04/30/2001')"

Java in Oracle, you need permissions!!!

One of the interesting things when you work with Java in Oracle is permissions, or better the lack of error messages telling you what permissions you need. If you have any IO actions in your Java code, you will need to give the user special permissions to do so. Oracle has one of their libraries dedicated to this need. It is called DBMS_JAVA.

-- To give permissions to execute IO operations
BEGIN
DBMS_JAVA.grant_permission('ODS_ETL', 'java.io.FilePermission', 'C:\TEMP\20070908A\', 'read ,write, execute, delete');
END;

-- To remove permissions to execute IO operations

BEGIN
DBMS_JAVA.revoke_permission('ODS_ETL', 'java.io.FilePermission', 'C:\TEMP\20070908A\', 'read ,write, execute, delete');
END;


--to get a list of your java permissions
SELECT * FROM USER_JAVA_POLICY

Oracle versus SYS_GUID versus OS

GUID's are one of my favorite items. It must be something about a global uniqueness at my fingertips. But while working on the RACs using the OS of LYNX I noticed the GUIDs were not being generated randomly as I have come to expect. Noticed they are just incremented by one.

select SYS_GUID() FROM DUAL

RACS-LYNX 64 bit
----------------------
4c9381b29852307ae040190a82003040
4c9381b29853307ae040190a82003040
4c9381b29854307ae040190a82003040
4c9381b29855307ae040190a82003040
4c9381b29856307ae040190a82003040


Workflow Server-Windows (OWB)
-----------------------------------
ac600a534951477b9264a8bb0b3b09cb
73b347c1ed31402cb75be64506d44327
716533d75c4d433eb6ce7d74ca763754
ded34a7cfab64b2a976ad183d9725be4
fbabac678fa242949889fb9e9b4d24ca



I did run across this article to help explain the issue.
http://feuerthoughts.blogspot.com/2006/02/watch-out-for-sequential-oracle-guids.html

How to delete records where some duplication occurs

I have a table of information of beneficiaries and I need to have one record per SSN, but there were multiple records per SSN due to typos in name or different addresses. I really didn't care which record I kept, just need one record per SSN. This is how I did it:

First see how many SSNs have more than one record
SELECT DISTINCT
SSN
FROM
(SELECT SSN,COUNT(*) FROM SI08005101 GROUP BY SSN HAVING COUNT(*) > 1)

Then delete the unwanted records
DELETE FROM
table_name A
WHERE
A.rowid >
ANY (SELECT B.rowid
FROM
table_name B
WHERE
A.SSN = B.SSN
)

When was a table created in Oracle

Jez....I thought I would never figure this out, but it is so very simple.

select OBJECT_NAME
,CREATED
from ALL_OBJECTS
where OWNER = 'GEAP_PROJECT'
and OBJECT_TYPE = 'TABLE'
and OBJECT_NAME = 'TBL_PRG_DELIVERY_TYPE'

So I have found myself in a pickle, and you’re going to love this. So I have a function on a server called FuncThatSmells. On this server, I have a database link to RAC1. On RAC1 I have another function called TestThisCrap.



create or replace
FUNCTION TestThisCrap RETURN VARCHAR2 AS
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'TRUNCATE TABLE ODS0_FIN.F_NOTE';
RETURN 'here';
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS
THEN
NULL;

RETURN 'there';
END ;


create or replace
FUNCTION FuncThatSmells RETURN VARCHAR2 AS
v_Return VARCHAR2(4000);
BEGIN
v_Return := FUNCTEST@something.COM;
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('PSQLCODE = ' v_Return);
END;



Now you’re going to love this. The issue is when I run this I get a message

ORA-02064: distributed operation not supported



From the forums, http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=1977703, I get this
.
.
.
ORA-02064: distributed operation not supported
Cause: One of the following unsupported operations was attempted:
1. array execute of a remote update with a subquery that references a dblink, or
2. an update of a long column with bind variable and an update of a second column with a subquery that both references a dblink and a bind variable, or
3. a commit is issued in a coordinated session from an RPC procedure call with OUT parameters or function call.
Action: simplify remote update statement
.
.
.


BAND MY HEAD ON THE KEYBOARD…………