Dynamic SQL Hangs [duplicate] - oracle

Question

Is it possible to search every field of every table for a particular value in Oracle?
There are hundreds of tables with thousands of rows in some tables so I know this could take a very long time to query. But the only thing I know is that a value for the field I would like to query against is 1/22/2008P09RR8.
<
I've tried using this statement below to find an appropriate column based on what I think it should be named but it returned no results.
SELECT * from dba_objects
WHERE object_name like '%DTN%'
There is absolutely no documentation on this database and I have no idea where this field is being pulled from.
Any thoughts?

Answer 1

Quote:
I've tried using this statement below
to find an appropriate column based on
what I think it should be named but it
returned no results.*
SELECT * from dba_objects WHERE
object_name like '%DTN%'
A column isn't an object. If you mean that you expect the column name to be like '%DTN%', the query you want is:
SELECT owner, table_name, column_name FROM all_tab_columns WHERE column_name LIKE '%DTN%';
But if the 'DTN' string is just a guess on your part, that probably won't help.
By the way, how certain are you that '1/22/2008P09RR8' is a value selected directly from a single column? If you don't know at all where it is coming from, it could be a concatenation of several columns, or the result of some function, or a value sitting in a nested table object. So you might be on a wild goose chase trying to check every column for that value. Can you not start with whatever client application is displaying this value and try to figure out what query it is using to obtain it?
Anyway, diciu's answer gives one method of generating SQL queries to check every column of every table for the value. You can also do similar stuff entirely in one SQL session using a PL/SQL block and dynamic SQL. Here's some hastily-written code for that:
SET SERVEROUTPUT ON SIZE 100000
DECLARE
match_count INTEGER;
BEGIN
FOR t IN (SELECT owner, table_name, column_name
FROM all_tab_columns
WHERE owner <> 'SYS' and data_type LIKE '%CHAR%') LOOP
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE
'SELECT COUNT(*) FROM ' || t.owner || '.' || t.table_name ||
' WHERE '||t.column_name||' = :1'
INTO match_count
USING '1/22/2008P09RR8';
IF match_count > 0 THEN
dbms_output.put_line( t.table_name ||' '||t.column_name||' '||match_count );
END IF;
END LOOP;
END;
/
There are some ways you could make it more efficient too.
In this case, given the value you are looking for, you can clearly eliminate any column that is of NUMBER or DATE type, which would reduce the number of queries. Maybe even restrict it to columns where type is like '%CHAR%'.
Instead of one query per column, you could build one query per table like this:
SELECT * FROM table1
WHERE column1 = 'value'
OR column2 = 'value'
OR column3 = 'value'
...
;

Answer 2

I did some modification to the above code to make it work faster if you are searching in only one owner.
You just have to change the 3 variables v_owner, v_data_type and v_search_string to fit what you are searching for.
SET SERVEROUTPUT ON SIZE 100000
DECLARE
match_count INTEGER;
-- Type the owner of the tables you are looking at
v_owner VARCHAR2(255) :='ENTER_USERNAME_HERE';
-- Type the data type you are look at (in CAPITAL)
-- VARCHAR2, NUMBER, etc.
v_data_type VARCHAR2(255) :='VARCHAR2';
-- Type the string you are looking at
v_search_string VARCHAR2(4000) :='string to search here...';
BEGIN
FOR t IN (SELECT table_name, column_name FROM all_tab_cols where owner=v_owner and data_type = v_data_type) LOOP
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE
'SELECT COUNT(*) FROM '||t.table_name||' WHERE '||t.column_name||' = :1'
INTO match_count
USING v_search_string;
IF match_count > 0 THEN
dbms_output.put_line( t.table_name ||' '||t.column_name||' '||match_count );
END IF;
END LOOP;
END;
/

Answer 3

I know this is an old topic. But I see a comment to the question asking if it could be done in SQL rather than using PL/SQL. So thought to post a solution.
The below demonstration is to Search for a VALUE in all COLUMNS of all TABLES in an entire SCHEMA:
Search a CHARACTER type
Let's look for the value KING in SCOTT schema.
SQL> variable val varchar2(10)
SQL> exec :val := 'KING'
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> SELECT DISTINCT SUBSTR (:val, 1, 11) "Searchword",
2 SUBSTR (table_name, 1, 14) "Table",
3 SUBSTR (column_name, 1, 14) "Column"
4 FROM cols,
5 TABLE (xmlsequence (dbms_xmlgen.getxmltype ('select '
6 || column_name
7 || ' from '
8 || table_name
9 || ' where upper('
10 || column_name
11 || ') like upper(''%'
12 || :val
13 || '%'')' ).extract ('ROWSET/ROW/*') ) ) t
14 ORDER BY "Table"
15 /
Searchword Table Column
----------- -------------- --------------
KING EMP ENAME
SQL>
Search a NUMERIC type
Let's look for the value 20 in SCOTT schema.
SQL> variable val NUMBER
SQL> exec :val := 20
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> SELECT DISTINCT SUBSTR (:val, 1, 11) "Searchword",
2 SUBSTR (table_name, 1, 14) "Table",
3 SUBSTR (column_name, 1, 14) "Column"
4 FROM cols,
5 TABLE (xmlsequence (dbms_xmlgen.getxmltype ('select '
6 || column_name
7 || ' from '
8 || table_name
9 || ' where upper('
10 || column_name
11 || ') like upper(''%'
12 || :val
13 || '%'')' ).extract ('ROWSET/ROW/*') ) ) t
14 ORDER BY "Table"
15 /
Searchword Table Column
----------- -------------- --------------
20 DEPT DEPTNO
20 EMP DEPTNO
20 EMP HIREDATE
20 SALGRADE HISAL
20 SALGRADE LOSAL
SQL>

Answer 4

Yes you can and your DBA will hate you and will find you to nail your shoes to the floor because that will cause lots of I/O and bring the database performance really down as the cache purges.
select column_name from all_tab_columns c, user_all_tables u where c.table_name = u.table_name;
for a start.
I would start with the running queries, using the v$session and the v$sqlarea. This changes based on oracle version. This will narrow down the space and not hit everything.

Answer 5

Here is another modified version that will compare a lower substring match. This works in Oracle 11g.
DECLARE
match_count INTEGER;
-- Type the owner of the tables you are looking at
v_owner VARCHAR2(255) :='OWNER_NAME';
-- Type the data type you are look at (in CAPITAL)
-- VARCHAR2, NUMBER, etc.
v_data_type VARCHAR2(255) :='VARCHAR2';
-- Type the string you are looking at
v_search_string VARCHAR2(4000) :='%lower-search-sub-string%';
BEGIN
FOR t IN (SELECT table_name, column_name FROM all_tab_cols where owner=v_owner and data_type = v_data_type) LOOP
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE
'SELECT COUNT(*) FROM '||t.table_name||' WHERE lower('||t.column_name||') like :1'
INTO match_count
USING v_search_string;
IF match_count > 0 THEN
dbms_output.put_line( t.table_name ||' '||t.column_name||' '||match_count );
END IF;
END LOOP;
END;
/

Answer 6

I modified Flood's script to execute once for each table rather than for every column of each table for faster execution. It requires Oracle 11g or greater.
set serveroutput on size 100000
declare
v_match_count integer;
v_counter integer;
-- The owner of the tables to search through (case-sensitive)
v_owner varchar2(255) := 'OWNER_NAME';
-- A string that is part of the data type(s) of the columns to search through (case-insensitive)
v_data_type varchar2(255) := 'CHAR';
-- The string to be searched for (case-insensitive)
v_search_string varchar2(4000) := 'FIND_ME';
-- Store the SQL to execute for each table in a CLOB to get around the 32767 byte max size for a VARCHAR2 in PL/SQL
v_sql clob := '';
begin
for cur_tables in (select owner, table_name from all_tables where owner = v_owner and table_name in
(select table_name from all_tab_columns where owner = all_tables.owner and data_type like '%' || upper(v_data_type) || '%')
order by table_name) loop
v_counter := 0;
v_sql := '';
for cur_columns in (select column_name from all_tab_columns where
owner = v_owner and table_name = cur_tables.table_name and data_type like '%' || upper(v_data_type) || '%') loop
if v_counter > 0 then
v_sql := v_sql || ' or ';
end if;
v_sql := v_sql || 'upper(' || cur_columns.column_name || ') like ''%' || upper(v_search_string) || '%''';
v_counter := v_counter + 1;
end loop;
v_sql := 'select count(*) from ' || cur_tables.table_name || ' where ' || v_sql;
execute immediate v_sql
into v_match_count;
if v_match_count > 0 then
dbms_output.put_line('Match in ' || cur_tables.owner || ': ' || cur_tables.table_name || ' - ' || v_match_count || ' records');
end if;
end loop;
exception
when others then
dbms_output.put_line('Error when executing the following: ' || dbms_lob.substr(v_sql, 32600));
end;
/

Answer 7

I was having following issues for #Lalit Kumars answer,
ORA-19202: Error occurred in XML processing
ORA-00904: "SUCCESS": invalid identifier
ORA-06512: at "SYS.DBMS_XMLGEN", line 288
ORA-06512: at line 1
19202. 00000 - "Error occurred in XML processing%s"
*Cause: An error occurred when processing the XML function
*Action: Check the given error message and fix the appropriate problem
Solution is:
WITH char_cols AS
(SELECT /*+materialize */ table_name, column_name
FROM cols
WHERE data_type IN ('CHAR', 'VARCHAR2'))
SELECT DISTINCT SUBSTR (:val, 1, 11) "Searchword",
SUBSTR (table_name, 1, 14) "Table",
SUBSTR (column_name, 1, 14) "Column"
FROM char_cols,
TABLE (xmlsequence (dbms_xmlgen.getxmltype ('select "'
|| column_name
|| '" from "'
|| table_name
|| '" where upper("'
|| column_name
|| '") like upper(''%'
|| :val
|| '%'')' ).extract ('ROWSET/ROW/*') ) ) t
ORDER BY "Table"
/

Answer 8

I would do something like this (generates all the selects you need).
You can later on feed them to sqlplus:
echo "select table_name from user_tables;" | sqlplus -S user/pwd | grep -v "^--" | grep -v "TABLE_NAME" | grep "^[A-Z]" | while read sw;
do echo "desc $sw" | sqlplus -S user/pwd | grep -v "\-\-\-\-\-\-" | awk -F' ' '{print $1}' | while read nw;
do echo "select * from $sw where $nw='val'";
done;
done;
It yields:
select * from TBL1 where DESCRIPTION='val'
select * from TBL1 where ='val'
select * from TBL2 where Name='val'
select * from TBL2 where LNG_ID='val'
And what it does is - for each table_name from user_tables get each field (from desc) and create a select * from table where field equals 'val'.

Answer 9

if we know the table and colum names but want to find out the number of times string is appearing for each schema:
Declare
owner VARCHAR2(1000);
tbl VARCHAR2(1000);
cnt number;
ct number;
str_sql varchar2(1000);
reason varchar2(1000);
x varchar2(1000):='%string_to_be_searched%';
cursor csr is select owner,table_name
from all_tables where table_name ='table_name';
type rec1 is record (
ct VARCHAR2(1000));
type rec is record (
owner VARCHAR2(1000):='',
table_name VARCHAR2(1000):='');
rec2 rec;
rec3 rec1;
begin
for rec2 in csr loop
--str_sql:= 'select count(*) from '||rec.owner||'.'||rec.table_name||' where CTV_REMARKS like '||chr(39)||x||chr(39);
--dbms_output.put_line(str_sql);
--execute immediate str_sql
execute immediate 'select count(*) from '||rec2.owner||'.'||rec2.table_name||' where column_name like '||chr(39)||x||chr(39)
into rec3;
if rec3.ct <> 0 then
dbms_output.put_line(rec2.owner||','||rec3.ct);
else null;
end if;
end loop;
end;

Answer 10

Procedure to Search Entire Database:
CREATE or REPLACE PROCEDURE SEARCH_DB(SEARCH_STR IN VARCHAR2, TAB_COL_RECS OUT VARCHAR2) IS
match_count integer;
qry_str varchar2(1000);
CURSOR TAB_COL_CURSOR IS
SELECT TABLE_NAME,COLUMN_NAME,OWNER,DATA_TYPE FROM ALL_TAB_COLUMNS WHERE DATA_TYPE in ('NUMBER','VARCHAR2') AND OWNER='SCOTT';
BEGIN
FOR TAB_COL_REC IN TAB_COL_CURSOR
LOOP
qry_str := 'SELECT COUNT(*) FROM '||TAB_COL_REC.OWNER||'.'||TAB_COL_REC.TABLE_NAME||
' WHERE '||TAB_COL_REC.COLUMN_NAME;
IF TAB_COL_REC.DATA_TYPE = 'NUMBER' THEN
qry_str := qry_str||'='||SEARCH_STR;
ELSE
qry_str := qry_str||' like '||SEARCH_STR;
END IF;
--dbms_output.put_line( qry_str );
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE qry_str INTO match_count;
IF match_count > 0 THEN
dbms_output.put_line( qry_str );
--dbms_output.put_line( TAB_COL_REC.TABLE_NAME ||' '||TAB_COL_REC.COLUMN_NAME ||' '||match_count);
TAB_COL_RECS := TAB_COL_RECS||'##'||TAB_COL_REC.TABLE_NAME||'##'||TAB_COL_REC.COLUMN_NAME;
END IF;
END LOOP;
END SEARCH_DB;
Execute Statement
DECLARE
SEARCH_STR VARCHAR2(200);
TAB_COL_RECS VARCHAR2(200);
BEGIN
SEARCH_STR := 10;
SEARCH_DB(
SEARCH_STR => SEARCH_STR,
TAB_COL_RECS => TAB_COL_RECS
);
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('TAB_COL_RECS = ' || TAB_COL_RECS);
END;
Sample Results
Connecting to the database test.
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM SCOTT.EMP WHERE DEPTNO=10
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM SCOTT.DEPT WHERE DEPTNO=10
TAB_COL_RECS = ##EMP##DEPTNO##DEPT##DEPTNO
Process exited.
Disconnecting from the database test.

Answer 11

I don't of a simple solution on the SQL promprt. Howeve there are quite a few tools like toad and PL/SQL Developer that have a GUI where a user can input the string to be searched and it will return the table/procedure/object where this is found.

Answer 12

There are some free tools that make these kind of search, for example, this one works fine and source code is available:
https://sites.google.com/site/freejansoft/dbsearch
You'll need the Oracle ODBC driver and a DSN to use this tool.

Answer 13

Modifying the code to search case-insensitively using a LIKE query instead of finding exact matches...
DECLARE
match_count INTEGER;
-- Type the owner of the tables you want to search.
v_owner VARCHAR2(255) :='USER';
-- Type the data type you're looking for (in CAPS). Examples include: VARCHAR2, NUMBER, etc.
v_data_type VARCHAR2(255) :='VARCHAR2';
-- Type the string you are looking for.
v_search_string VARCHAR2(4000) :='Test';
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line( 'Starting the search...' );
FOR t IN (SELECT table_name, column_name FROM all_tab_cols where owner=v_owner and data_type = v_data_type) LOOP
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE
'SELECT COUNT(*) FROM '||t.table_name||' WHERE LOWER('||t.column_name||') LIKE :1'
INTO match_count
USING LOWER('%'||v_search_string||'%');
IF match_count > 0 THEN
dbms_output.put_line( t.table_name ||' '||t.column_name||' '||match_count );
END IF;
END LOOP;
END;

Answer 14

I found the best solution but it's a little slow. (It will work perfectly with all SQL IDE's.)
SELECT DISTINCT table_name, column_name, data_type
FROM user_tab_cols,
TABLE (xmlsequence (dbms_xmlgen.getxmltype ('select '
|| column_name
|| ' from '
|| table_name
|| ' where lower('
|| column_name
|| ') like lower(''%'
|| 'your_text_here'
|| '%'')' ).extract ('ROWSET/ROW/*') ) ) a
where table_name not in (
select distinct table_name
from user_tab_cols where data_type like 'SDO%'
or data_type like '%LOB') AND DATA_TYPE = 'VARCHAR2'
order by table_name, column_name;

Answer 15

--it run completed -- no error
SET SERVEROUTPUT ON SIZE 100000
DECLARE
v_match_count INTEGER;
v_counter INTEGER;
v_owner VARCHAR2 (255) := 'VASOA';
v_search_string VARCHAR2 (4000) := '99999';
v_data_type VARCHAR2 (255) := 'CHAR';
v_sql CLOB := '';
BEGIN
FOR cur_tables
IN ( SELECT owner, table_name
FROM all_tables
WHERE owner = v_owner
AND table_name IN (SELECT table_name
FROM all_tab_columns
WHERE owner = all_tables.owner
AND data_type LIKE
'%'
|| UPPER (v_data_type)
|| '%')
ORDER BY table_name)
LOOP
v_counter := 0;
v_sql := '';
FOR cur_columns
IN (SELECT column_name, table_name
FROM all_tab_columns
WHERE owner = v_owner
AND table_name = cur_tables.table_name
AND data_type LIKE '%' || UPPER (v_data_type) || '%')
LOOP
IF v_counter > 0
THEN
v_sql := v_sql || ' or ';
END IF;
IF cur_columns.column_name is not null
THEN
v_sql :=
v_sql
|| 'upper('
|| cur_columns.column_name
|| ') ='''
|| UPPER (v_search_string)||'''';
v_counter := v_counter + 1;
END IF;
END LOOP;
IF v_sql is null
THEN
v_sql :=
'select count(*) from '
|| v_owner
|| '.'
|| cur_tables.table_name;
END IF;
IF v_sql is not null
THEN
v_sql :=
'select count(*) from '
|| v_owner
|| '.'
|| cur_tables.table_name
|| ' where '
|| v_sql;
END IF;
--v_sql := 'select count(*) from ' ||v_owner||'.'|| cur_tables.table_name ||' where '|| v_sql;
--dbms_output.put_line(v_sql);
--DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (v_sql);
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE v_sql INTO v_match_count;
IF v_match_count > 0
THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (v_sql);
dbms_output.put_line('Match in ' || cur_tables.owner || ': ' || cur_tables.table_name || ' - ' || v_match_count || ' records');
END IF;
END LOOP;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS
THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (
'Error when executing the following: '
|| DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR (v_sql, 32600));
END;
/

Answer 16

Borrowing, slightly enhancing and simplifying from this Blog post the following simple SQL statement seems to do the job quite well:
SELECT DISTINCT (:val) "Search Value", TABLE_NAME "Table", COLUMN_NAME "Column"
FROM cols,
TABLE (XMLSEQUENCE (DBMS_XMLGEN.GETXMLTYPE(
'SELECT "' || COLUMN_NAME || '" FROM "' || TABLE_NAME || '" WHERE UPPER("'
|| COLUMN_NAME || '") LIKE UPPER(''%' || :val || '%'')' ).EXTRACT ('ROWSET/ROW/*')))
ORDER BY "Table";

Answer 17

The Oracle LIKE condition allows wildcards to be used in the WHERE clause of a SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE statement.
%: to match any string of any length
Eg-
SELECT last_name
FROM customer_tab
WHERE last_name LIKE '%A%';
-: to match on a single character
Eg-
SELECT last_name
FROM customer_tab
WHERE last_name LIKE 'A_t';