I feel like this is one of those "if you're careful you can do it" scenarios that Oracle just doesn't want to let me do.
My problem is that I have a single configuration table that I want to enable inheritance via Triggers. Think an Employee table with a SUPERVISOR ID column, and 'inherited' SUPERVISOR NAME that self populates if the ID is changed.
I'd like to do a simple self-lookup to capture a value from another row at time of INS/UPD. But Oracle is rejecting as a mutating trigger error.
My code is essentially:
TRIGGER UPD_CHILD_RECORD
BEFORE INSERT OR UPDATE
ON MYSCHEMA.FAKE_EMPLOYEE
FOR EACH ROW
WHEN (NEW.SUPERVISOR_ID IS NOT NULL)
BEGIN
IF INSERTING OR UPDATING
THEN
:NEW.SUPERVISOR_NAME = (
SELECT MAX(NAME)
FROM MYSCHEMA.FAKE_EMPLOYEE
WHERE EMPLOYEE_ID = :NEW.SUPERVISOR_ID
);
END IF;
END UPD_CHILD_RECORD
;
thanks.
This is a normal behavior. Oracle protects you from inconsistent data that you may get accessing a table which is already being updated.
Imagine this scenario.
You submit two update statements and have a trigger that selects from that same table. Let's assume that the first statement is successfully applied and the data gets changed. Now it's time for the second statement. What output would you expect from the select statement in the trigger? Should it return data as it was before the first update, or should it include the changes made? You probably think that Oracle should return the new data. But first, Oracle does not really know your intentions, and second, that would mean that your query is dependent on row order, which contradicts the relational algebra.
The solution for your problem is quite simple. You do not need the SUPERVISOR_NAME column at all. To get supervisor's name, simply join the table with itself and get the desired result, something like:
select t1.ID, t1.SUPERVISOR_ID, t2.NAME from FAKE_EMPLOYEE t1
left join FAKE_EMPLOYEE t2 on t1.SUPERVISOR_ID = t2.ID;
What's the difference between these two blocks and when to use the first or the second?
Create OR Replace trigger trig_before_insert before insert on Employee For each Row
Begin
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('Inserting');
END;
And
Create OR Replace trigger trig_before_insert before insert on Employee
Begin
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('Inserting');
END;
If you perform an
INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE
SELECT ...
and that SELECT returns 100 rows so that the INSERT inserts 100 rows, your first trigger will execute 100 times, once for each row. In the same situation, your second trigger will execute only once.
You can use a BEFORE INSERT...FOR EACH ROW trigger to change the values that are being inserted by accessing them via the :NEW variable. E.g.,
:new.column_1 := 'a different value';
You cannot do that in a statement level trigger (which is what your 2nd trigger is).
There are also limitations in row level triggers (which is what your 1st trigger is). In particular, you may not SELECT from the trigger's base table (EMPLOYEES in this case), because that table is said to be "mutating". The exact reasons, as I understand them, go back to the core principles of relational databases -- specifically that the results of a statement (like INSERT INTO...SELECT) should not depend on the order in which the rows are processed. There are workarounds to this limitation, however, which are beyond the scope of your original question, I think.
I have a trigger that calls a stored procedure when activated, passing :NEW values as a parameter. I have about 40 tables that use the same trigger, and I would like to use the same code for each trigger. Therefore, I am trying to pass all columns of a new row. My code is below and shows what I am attempting to do (however, the problem is that :NEW.* is not a valid expression):
CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER "TRIG_TEST_TRIGGER"
AFTER INSERT OR DELETE OR UPDATE ON TRIG_TEST
FOR EACH ROW
DECLARE
BEGIN
MY_STORED_PROC('Trigger Activated: ' || :NEW.*);
END;
Most likely, you can't.
You could write a procedure that uses dynamic SQL to generate the appropriate trigger code for each table. Of course, that would require that you re-run the procedure to re-create the trigger every time the table changes.
I'm a bit hard-pressed, though, to imagine what my_stored_proc might be doing that it would make sense to pass it a string representing every column from 1 of 40 tables with, presumably, 40 different sets of columns. If you're writing to a log table, if you want the data from every column, that generally implies that you want to be able to see the evolution of a particular row over time. But that is extremely hard to do if your log table just has strings in all sorts of different formats from many different tables since you'd constantly have to do things like parsing the string that you logged.
I need to write a sproc which performs some INSERTs on a table, and compile a list of "statuses" for each row based on how well the INSERT went. Each row will be inserted within a loop, the loop iterates over a cursor that supplies some values for the INSERT statement. What I need to return is a resultset which looks like this:
FIELDS_FROM_ROW_BEING_INSERTED.., STATUS VARCHAR2
The STATUS is determined by how the INSERT went. For instance, if the INSERT caused a DUP_VAL_ON_INDEX exception indicating there was a duplicate row, I'd set the STATUS to "Dupe". If all went well, I'd set it to "SUCCESS" and proceed to the next row.
By the end of it all, I'd have a resultset of N rows, where N is the number of insert statements performed and each row contains some identifying info for the row being inserted, along with the "STATUS" of the insertion
Since there is no table in my DB to store the values I'd like to pass back to the user, I'm wondering how I can return the info back? Temporary table? Seems in Oracle temporary tables are "global", not sure I would want a global table, are there any temporary tables that get dropped after a session is done?
If you are using Oracle 10gR2 or later then you should check out DML error logging. This basically does what you want to achieve, that is, it allows us to execute all the DML in a batch process by recording any errors and pressing on with the statements.
The principle is that we create an ERROR LOG table for each table we need to work with, using a PL/SQL built-in package DBMS_ERRLOG. Find out more. There is a simple extension to the DML syntax to log messages to the error log table. See an example here. This approach doesn't create any more objects than your proposal, and has the merit of using some standard Oracle functionality.
When working with bulk processing (that is, when using the FORALL syntax) we can trap exceptions using the built-in SQL%BULK_EXCEPTIONS collection. Check it out. It is possible to combine Bulk Exceptions with DML Error Logging but that may create problems in 11g. Find out more.
"Global" in the case of temporary tables just means they are permanent, it's the data which is temporary.
I would define a record type that matches your cursor, plus the status field. Then define a table of that type.
TYPE t_record IS
(
field_1,
...
field_n,
status VARCHAR2(30)
);
TYPE t_table IS TABLE OF t_record;
FUNCTION insert_records
(
p_rows_to_insert IN SYS_REFCURSOR
)
RETURN t_table;
Even better would be to also define the inputs as a table type instead of a cursor.
I have table with "varchar2" as primary key.
It has about 1 000 000 Transactions per day.
My app wakes up every 5 minute to generate text file by querying only new record.
It will remember last point and process only new records.
Do you have idea how to query with good performance?
I am able to add new column if necessary.
What do you think this process should do by?
plsql?
java?
Everyone here is really really close. However:
Scott Bailey's wrong about using a bitmap index if the table's under any sort of continuous DML load. That's exactly the wrong time to use a bitmap index.
Everyone else's answer about the PROCESSED CHAR(1) check in ('Y','N')column is right, but missing how to index it; you should use a function-based index like this:
CREATE INDEX MY_UNPROCESSED_ROWS_IDX ON MY_TABLE
(CASE WHEN PROCESSED_FLAG = 'N' THEN 'N' ELSE NULL END);
You'd then query it using the same expression:
SELECT * FROM MY_TABLE
WHERE (CASE WHEN PROCESSED_FLAG = 'N' THEN 'N' ELSE NULL END) = 'N';
The reason to use the function-based index is that Oracle doesn't write index entries for entirely NULL values being indexed, so the function-based index above will only contain the rows with PROCESSED_FLAG = 'N'. As you update your rows to PROCESSED_FLAG = 'Y', they'll "fall out" of the index.
Well, if you can add a new column, you could create a Processed column, which will indicate processed records, and create an index on this column for performance.
Then the query should only be for those rows that have been newly added, and not processed.
This should be easily done using sql queries.
Ah, I really hate to add another answer when the others have come so close to nailing it. But
As Ponies points out, Oracle does have a hidden column (ORA_ROWSCN - System Change Number) that can pinpoint when each row was modified. Unfortunately, the default is that it gets the information from the block instead of storing it with each row and changing that behavior will require you to rebuild a really large table. So while this answer is good for quieting the SQL Server fella, I'd not recommend it.
Astander is right there but needs a few caveats. Add a new column needs_processed CHAR(1) DEFAULT 'Y' and add a BITMAP index. For low cardinality columns ('Y'/'N') the bitmap index will be faster. Once you have the rest is pretty easy. But you've got to be careful not select the new rows, process them and mark them as processed in one step. Otherwise, rows could be inserted while you are processing that will get marked processed even though they have not been.
The easiest way would be to use pl/sql to open a cursor that selects unprocessed rows, processes them and then updates the row as processed. If you have an aversion to walking cursors, you could collect the pk's or rowids into a nested table, process them and then update using the nested table.
In MS SQL Server world where I work, we have a 'version' column of type 'timestamp' on our tables.
So, to answer #1, I would add a new column.
To answer #2, I would do it in plsql for performance.
Mark
"astander" pretty much did the work for you. You need to ALTER your table to add one more column (lets say PROCESSED)..
You can also consider creating an INDEX on the PROCESSED ( a bitmap index may be of some advantage, as the possible value can be only 'y' and 'n', but test it out ) so that when you query it will use INDEX.
Also if sure, you query only for every 5 mins, check whether you can add another column with TIMESTAMP type and partition the table with it. ( not sure, check out again ).
I would also think about writing job or some thing and write using UTL_FILE and show it front end if it can be.
If performance is really a problem and you want to create your file asynchronously, you might want to use Oracle Streams, which will actually get modification data from your redo log withou affecting performance of the main database. You may not even need a separate job, as you can configure Oracle Streams to do Asynchronous replication of the changes, through which you can trigger the file creation.
Why not create an extra table that holds two columns. The ID column and a processed flag column. Have an insert trigger on the original table place it's ID in this new table. Your logging process can than select records from this new table and mark them as processed. Finally delete the processed records from this table.
I'm pretty much in agreement with Adam's answer. But I'd want to do some serious testing compared to an alternative.
The issue I see is that you need to not only select the rows, but also do an update of those rows. While that should be pretty fast, I'd like to avoid the update. And avoid having any large transactions hanging around (see below).
The alternative would be to add CREATE_DATE date default sysdate. Index that. And then select records where create_date >= (start date/time of your previous select).
But I don't have enough data on the relative costs of setting a sysdate as default vs. setting a value of Y, updating the function based vs. date index, and doing a range select on the date vs. a specific select on a single value for the Y. You'll probably want to preserve stats or hint the query to use the index on the Y/N column, and definitely want to use a hint on a date column -- the stats on the date column will almost certainly be old.
If data are also being added to the table continuously, including during the period when your query is running, you need to watch out for transaction control. After all, you don't want to read 100,000 records that have the flag = Y, then do your update on 120,000, including the 20,000 that arrived when you query was running.
In the flag case, there are two easy ways: SET TRANSACTION before your select and commit after your update, or start by doing an update from Y to Q, then do your select for those that are Q, and then update to N. Oracle's read consistency is wonderful but needs to be handled with care.
For the date column version, if you don't mind a risk of processing a few rows more than once, just update your table that has the last processed date/time immediately before you do your select.
If there's not much information in the table, consider making it Index Organized.
What about using Materialized view logs? You have a lot of options to play with:
SQL> create table test (id_test number primary key, dummy varchar2(1000));
Table created
SQL> create materialized view log on test;
Materialized view log created
SQL> insert into test values (1, 'hello');
1 row inserted
SQL> insert into test values (2, 'bye');
1 row inserted
SQL> select * from mlog$_test;
ID_TEST SNAPTIME$$ DMLTYPE$$ OLD_NEW$$ CHANGE_VECTOR$$
---------- ----------- --------- --------- ---------------------
1 01/01/4000 I N FE
2 01/01/4000 I N FE
SQL> delete from mlog$_test where id_test in (1,2);
2 rows deleted
SQL> insert into test values (3, 'hello');
1 row inserted
SQL> insert into test values (4, 'bye');
1 row inserted
SQL> select * from mlog$_test;
ID_TEST SNAPTIME$$ DMLTYPE$$ OLD_NEW$$ CHANGE_VECTOR$$
---------- ----------- --------- --------- ---------------
3 01/01/4000 I N FE
4 01/01/4000 I N FE
I think this solution should work..
What you need to do following steps
For the first run, you will have to copy all records. In first run you need to execute following query
insert into new_table(max_rowid) as (Select max(rowid) from yourtable);
Now next time when you want to get only newly inserted values, you can do it by executing follwing command
Select * from yourtable where rowid > (select max_rowid from new_table);
Once you are done with processing above query, simply truncate new_table and insert max(rowid) from yourtable
I think this should work and would be fastest solution;