Oracle Built−in Packages- P97: Ah, for the good old days of Version of PL /SQL! Life was so simple then. No stored procedures or functions and certainly no packages. You had your set of built−in functions, like SUBSTR and TO_DATE. You had the IF statement and various kinds of loops. With these tools at hand, you built your batch−processing scripts for execution in SQL*Plus, and you coded your triggers in SQL*Forms , and you went home at night content with a good day's work done. | Oracle Built-in Packages SEARCH PREVIOUS Chapter 10 NEXT 471 10. Miscellaneous Packages Contents DBMS_UTILITY Performing Miscellaneous Operations DBMS_DESCRIBE Describing PL SQL Program Headers DBMS_DDL Compiling and Analyzing Objects DBMS_RANDOM Generating Random Numbers Oracle8 Only You can t find a neat category for everything can you This chapter brings together a variety of useful packages you are sure to dip into on a regular basis DBMSUTILITY The actual miscellaneous package. It offers programs to free unused user memory parse comma-delimited lists calculate the elapsed time of PL SQL programs and much more. You never know what you ll find popping up next in DBMS_UTILITY DBMS_DESCRIBE Contains a single procedure DESCRIBE_PROCEDURE which you can use to get information about the parameters of a stored program. DBMS_DDL Contains programs to recompile stored code analyze objects in your schema and modify the referenceability of object identifiers in Oracle8. DBMSRANDOM New to Oracle8 supplies PL SQL developers with a random number generator. DBMS_UTILITY Performing Miscellaneous Operations The DBMS_UTILITY package is the miscellaneous package for PL SQL. It contains programs that perform a wide variety of operations listed in Table . TIP I recommend that whenever you install a new version of the Oracle database you scan the contents of the file. Check to see if Oracle has added any new programs or changed the functionality of existing programs. Getting Started with DBMS_UTILITY The DBMS_UTILITY package is created when the Oracle database is installed. The script found in the built-in packages source code directory as described in Chapter 1 Introduction contains the source code for this package s specification. This script is called by which is normally run immediately after database creation. The script creates the public synonym DBMS_UTILITY for the package and grants EXECUTE privilege on the package to .
