RE: My 10 Commandments of Database Administration...

Knowing that the fnd_login session is no longer valid does not give you a valid value to shove in there. Your uncertainty would be the frequency of such checking.

Again, it is your interpretation that NULL means current session that is incorrect. All it means is that the time of ending the session is not known.

Perhaps you're proposing a new column "detected_as_no_longer_valid" that could be unambiguously defined, but that is different than the definition of end_date, which is either the actual time of a graceful logout or unknown. NULL is just the right value for that, but attempting to use that column for any other meaning is just wrong. So if someone tries to tell you that the count of fnd_logins with NULL for end_date is the number of current applications sessions, then they are barking up the wrong tree. If they tell you it is the ceiling for that value, they are correct. If you wanted to subtract off the ones that don't map, that would work, but I'm not clear that is faster than the join to show the NULL valued end_date fnd_login tuples that do correspond to active sessions.

As I noted before "I'm not sure what value you'd like to stuff in there."

mwf

-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org]On Behalf Of Nelson, Allan Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2004 9:38 AM To: mwf_at_rsiz.com; oracle-l_at_freelists.org Subject: RE: My 10 Commandments of Database Administration...

Not so fast. The state for all records in fnd_login that have no corresponding record in v$session and v$process and end_date is null are both known and incorrect. Just because something was validly null at one point in time does not mean that it is true forever and this is the problem for leaving the nulls there when the user is not connected.

Allan

-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Mark W. Farnham Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2004 8:15 AM To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Subject: RE: My 10 Commandments of Database Administration...

Hmm. The end_date of a login is an unknown value when the login is not yet ended. That sounds right to me. The end_date of a login is probably also unknown to Applications in the event of an abrupt termination. (And maybe the database too, if the abrupt event was a crash. Even if the database stays up, I'm not sure what value you'd like to stuff in there.) So a NULL in end_date correctly describes the information that the end_date of the login is unknown.

I think this illustrates that attempting to ASCRIBE MEANING to a NULL value other than it is unknown is the problem.

I think you're the one who gets to start cooking for Nuno. (Also possibly someone in documentation at Oracle if they wrote that a NULL end_date in fnd_login means anything other than it is unknown when that login ended.)

Slight amendment to Ryan's #11: Thou shalt feed me whatever I want if.... (and usually it's gonna be pizza and beer, but I'm not ruling out Chinese.)

mwf

-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org]On Behalf Of Nelson, Allan Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2004 8:42 AM To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Subject: RE: My 10 Commandments of Database Administration...

Dear God! Oracle Financials uses NULL in end_date on fnd_login to indicate either the current login or an abrupt termination of the user session neatly making your point and potentially providing with an enourmous number of cooks!

Allan

-----Original Message-----
=3D46rom: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Nuno Pinto do Souto Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 7:41 PM To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Subject: Re: My 10 Commandments of Database Administration...

Quoting from AUTHOR ryan gaffuri:
> 11. Thou shalt feed me if I have to work late to fix something =
you=3D20=20
> broke.
>
> I'm a single guy...

Nuno's design corollary #1:

Thou shall not use end_date =3D3D NULL to mean "current row" of = ANYTHING!
NULL has NO MEANING whatsoever: it does NOT mean "current"!

Under penalty of having to cook for Nuno (and I'm a heavy bloke)...

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