As I promised earlier, the focus of this blog entry will be using the Editor in Toad for Data Analysts. The Editor is where you can enter your own SQL code to query the database. Since you’re already familiar with Toad for Oracle’s Editor, you’ll notice some similarities in Toad for D ...

In Part III of this series of blogs, I’ll discuss the Query Builder in Toad for Data Analysts. In my previous entry, I said that I would talk about both the Editor and the Query Builder in Part III. Both features are so rich that I feel that separating the topics would be the best ...

Sometimes people will have a problem getting a TOAD feature to work – such as the PL/SQL debugger or profiler. For example a user might run TOAD and not be able to select or highlight the debugger icon on the main toolbar. So when they’re in the editor they cannot seemingly invoke or use the debugger. The initial conclusion is that TOAD must have a bug. But 90% of the time, it’s actually a database setup issue. ...

This blog is the third in a series about misconceptions surrounding SQL tuning that are quite common. It covers the misconception that there is always some SQL syntax that is the best across different databases and hardware environments.

I was on the phone with a Quest Code Tester user the other day and he asked me if I was working on the next edition of my original "magnum opus", Oracle PL/SQL Programming, which would include Oracle11g features.

 

I cannot describe to you how good it felt to say: &q ...

So if you’re reading this blog, hopefully that means you’ve just finished watching my ‘Discover the Hidden Treasures of Toad for Oracle, Developers’ presentation at our 2009 Toad Virtual Expo. If not, then you can still watch this 45 minute presentation for the immediate 60 days after the conference.

Previously, we discussed how to establish connections to the database. If you’re interested in a refresher, the entry can be found here: http://www.toadworld.com/Community/Blogs/tabid/67/EntryID/382/Default.aspx Now that we’v ...

I am often asked about the naming conventions and coding standards that I use. My answer is usually a combination of muttering and vague statements and hand-waving.

 

That's because I have a confession: I don't have a single naming conventions and coding standards document that I use. Why not? Because I am a software developer! That is, I feel (well, I &l ...

In this series of blog topics, I will attempt to translate certain features in Toad for Data Analysts for those of you who are more familiar with Toad for Oracle. As you may (or may not) know, Quest Software allows licensed owners of Toad ...

The last two posts have covered popular misconceptions or “urban myths” myths when measuring and performing benchmarks. That might seem like the “whole enchilada”, but there's yet one more critical aspect to successful benchmarking – preparation. I encounter numerous people who believe that they can simply assemble the necessary hardware, install the OS, install the database software, creat ...

The title says it all – there is no such thing. This is the second benchmarking myth or “urban legend” that needs exposed. However this is the most prevalent frustration or exasperation that people attempting database benchmarks experience – and experience the hard way (i.e. their efforts majorly or totally fail to meet their initial expectations).

 

Ther ...

As with many facets of life, database benchmarking has several myths or “urban legends” that need summarily dispelled. So I’m going to write a few short blogs focusing one by one on some of these misunderstood database benchmarking issues. Note that I am not preaching that database benchmarking is a worthwhile task, because there are many who feel it’s not. In fact I recently read an excellent Forreste ...

Every month, a Toad World newsletter goes out to thousands of Toad users and it includes a monthly puzzle that I write. Last month's puzzle went like this:

Which of the following blocks does not contain an infinite loop?

In case you simply can't get enough of Steven Feuerstein (no, I don't generally talk about my self in the third person or in the royal "we"), I invite you to check out this interview. I had an awful lot of fun answering the questions, and you might be entertained reading them.

Written by Rene Woody

This blog is the first of a series about test running the SQL statements in the Tuning Lab in Quest SQL Optimizer for Oracle to find the best performing SQL statement in your database environment. It covers the options for terminating the SQL alternatives when they are executed in a batch.

It's truly one of the oddities of the PL/SQL language that it does not offer a delimited string parsing program. The closest we can get is DBMS_UTILITY.COMMA_TO_TABLE, and that is sadly deficient (it only parses comma-delimited strings and each item between the commas must be a valid PL/SQL identifier).

 

So I built one myself (the parse package) and put ...

Written by Rene Woody
 
This blog is a continuation of a series about the SQL optimization process in the Batch Optimizer and the Tuning Lab modules of Quest SQL Optimizer for Oracle.  ...

Recently there have been a lot of questions on some of the features of Toad Data Modeler which are part of the basic components of the tool but for whatever reason people seem to have a bit of trouble figuring them out.

In the past I have published some papers on a couple of these features on Toad World and I will provide links to them at the bottom of this blog.

This was a question I got this morning from a customer. I showed them how to do this with the ‘Alter’ dialog in Toad’s Schema Browser. However, they wanted to do it for more than one table at a time, and apparently some OTHER tool could do so. Why couldn’t Toad?

Great question. It turns out that IT CAN INDEED do so. Here’s how:

Developers are hard people to satisfy. Oracle gives us this incredibly robust, powerful and easy to use database programming language – and all we can do is complain about what it doesn't do for us.

Well, that's reality for you: PL/SQL is powerful and robust and easy to use, but also very narrowly focused. So if you want it to do something outside of its area ...

I think we can all agree that of ALL the features in Toad that impact the most number of users is the data grid. Whether investigating the contents of a table, running queries, or monitoring connected sessions in the Session Browser, the data grids deliver information to the user. How well you know the data grid and all of its embedded features will impact how useful and productive ...

I had a very productive visit with an information management company, demonstrating the complete range of Toad solutions, including the Toad Development and DBA Suite for Oracle, Toad for SQL Server, as well as Toad for Data Analysts. The presentation took place in Boston, and dialed in through a webcast were attendees in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Belfast, and Bangalore. This vis ...

While co-presenting with Bert at the Rocky Mountain Oracle User group, Bert yells out “Hey, show that cool FK lookup thingie in the data grids.” I was like, ‘huh?’ Surely Bert just didn’t call me out in front of 100 or so people on a Toad feature that I did not fully understand?

Well, I got around to figuring out just what Bert was talking about, and NOW I rememb ...

I am an SC for Quest Software, and very fortunate to be able to demonstrate the solutions that make up the Toad product family. My initial goals for this blog will be to share some of the interesting conversations and discussions that arise from Toad demonstrations. Rather than screen shots of a certain feature, I will try and relate Toad functionality to real life scenarios and exa ...

A lot of times people will ask the Toad Yahoo discussion group or live at Toad Tips & Tricks events whether Toad can do something. Specifically, the question might be more like can Toad version X support this very cool new Oracle feature I’d like to leverage.

 

For example, a user might ask does Toad 8.0 offer a screen for Oracle AWR. If you look ...

In the previous blog, we compared and contrasted how database Performance Management operations are performed in Oracle’s Enterprise Manager (OEM) and Quest’s Toad DBA Suite for Oracle and how Toad is ...

This blog is the first in a series about misconceptions surrounding SQL tuning that are quite common. The first one covers the misconception that you can use the estimated cost from the database SQL optimizer to accurately judge the performance of a SQL statement in comparison to its rewrites.

 

SQL tuning is a very interesting topic and most DBA or devel ...

Welcome to my first blog! I am very excited about this opportunity to relay information about benchmarking/performance testing and, in particular, Benchmark Factory for Databases (BMF), but where to begin? For my first blog, I’ll start on the topic of latency.

One key thing to understand when doing testing is the characteristics of the workload, and a big piece o ...