Utilities

A utility to provide the CBO with the correct cardinality of small collections used in TABLE() queries (such as variable in-lists). This helps to achieve better execution plans without having to use the undocumented CARDINALITY hint. Supports versions from 10g onwards. November 2009

Procedure to dump the contents of a table or the results of a query to flat file. February 2004

A package to capture and report separate INSERT and UPDATE rowcounts from a MERGE statement. February 2004

A utility to add parent ID and execution order information to plans reported by DBMS_XPLAN. XPlan includes DISPLAY, DISPLAY_CURSOR and DISPLAY_AWR functionality for use in exactly the same way as the DBMS_XPLAN equivalents. Supports versions from 10g onwards. ***Update*** Now available in two formats: 1) as a PL/SQL package and 2) as a collection of three free-standing SQL*Plus scripts (i.e. no installation/database objects needed). January 2009 (updated October 2011)

A variation on Jonathan Lewis's SNAP_MY_STATS package to report the resource consumption of a unit of work between two snapshots. Designed to work under constrained developer environments, this version has enhancements such as time model statistics and the option to report on specific statistics. ***Update*** Now available in two formats: 1) as a PL/SQL package and 2) as a free-standing SQL*Plus script (i.e. no installation/database objects needed). June 2007 (updated October 2011)

A variation on Tom Kyte's invaluable RUNSTATS utility that compares the resource consumption of two alternative units of work. Designed to work under constrained developer environments and builds on the original with enhancements such as "pause and resume" functionality, time model statistics and the option to report on specific statistics. ***Update*** Now available in two formats: 1) as a PL/SQL package and 2) as a free-standing SQL*Plus script (i.e. no installation/database objects needed). January 2007 (updated October 2011)

A simple package to start and maintain a session-based counter. Useful for debugging and instrumentation. May 2008

Two versions of an application to encapsulate the data dictionary views that have LONG columns. LONGs are converted to CLOBs in pipelined functions, enabling us to search, copy and manipulate these columns with string functions. A static version supports 9.2 and 10.1 and a dynamic ANYDATASET version supports 10.2 onwards. August 2007 (updated July 2010)

A simple package to output the elapsed time between two points. Supports versions from 8i onwards. July 2005

A simple wrapper to DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE to workaround the 255 byte limit (not needed from 10.2 onwards). April 2002