Pray tell how reading the fucking manual will help me identify which data
value violoated a unique constraint.
"Daniel A. Morgan" <damorgan_at_exesolutions.com> wrote in message
news:3C402732.6D697C4_at_exesolutions.com...
> In my opinion Oracle's error messages are among the clearest, most
concise, and
> useful in the business. And given the on-line resources such as technet
and
> metalink easily understood and resolved in almost all cases. The last
thing
> Oracle needs to do is rewrite its error messages. The first thing it needs
to do
> is stop making its products available to people that don't or can't RTFM.
>
> Daniel Morgan
>
>
>
> Keith Boulton wrote:
>
> > > Most people in the Oracle related newsgroup appear not to look up the
> > > error message at all, but just post them.
> > You're getting a bit tectchy in your old age!
> >
> > On a different subject, my impression is that the general quality of
> > requests and responses to the oracle newgroups has risen consistently
over
> > the years - thanks to all of you.
> >
> > > Your changes to the PLS-00201 message are simply incorrect, as there
> > > are various methods to avoid this problem, and the remark 'accessible
> > > directly' may well not apply at all.
> > But what is the commonest cause? Although to be fair, I did look up the
> > error message and it does give the possible reason.
> >
> > > Ever looked at Microsux error messages like
> > > 'The system is unstable'?
> > The fact that other vendors are as bad or worse is not really relevant.
In
> > my experience, there is a general issue with error messages that they
are
> > not based on the needs of the person who will receive the message, but
> > rather on the context of the programmer who coded the error message when
it
> > was added.
> >
> > > I don't agree with a general remark 'poor choice of error message
> > > seems to apply throughout'
> > But it does. In general, the error message is a simple text which
doesn't
> > give the context required e.g.
> >
> > ORA-00001 unique constraint (string.string) violated
> > At least we now get the constraint name, but why not give the columns
and
> > values involved:
> > Unique constraint <constraint name> - <tablename>( <column>,
<column>
> > ... ) violated with values( <value>, <value>...)
> >
> > ORA-00054 resource busy and acquire with NOWAIT specified
> > Which resource?
> >
> > ORA-00210 cannot open the specified controlfile
> > which?
> >
> > ORA-00902 invalid datatype
> > what?
> >
> > ORA-00903 invalid table name
> > what invalid table name
> >
> > ORA-00904 invalid column name
> >
> > ORA-00918 column ambiguously defined
> > which one?
> >
> > ORA-00932 inconsistent datatypes
> > which columns or literal values are involved? Especially given two other
> > reasons why this error may occur:
> > 1. An attempt was made to perform an operation on a database object
(such as
> > a table or view) that is not intended for normal use. For example,
system
> > tables cannot be modified by a user. Note that on rare occasions this
error
> > occurs because a misspelled object name matched a restricted object's
name.
> > 2 An attempt was made to use an undocumented view.
> >
> > I could go on.
> >
> > > In the particular example you mention you can copy and paste the
> > > affected statement to a sql*plus window and get the *exact* location
> > > of the error.
> > Which isn't helpful if the error has been trapped as an exception in a
> > pl/sql block containing more than one statement, and in any case, given
a
> > reasonable error text I should not need to cut and paste code into other
> > environments.
> >
> > > I agree there are people who think that is asked too much of them.
> > I agree, after all a simple "error occurred" is all that is really
required.
> > People can work out the error from that.
> >
> > > Of course, there is always the option of addressing your concerns with
> > > Oracle,
> > I would if I could.
> >
> > > or alternatively choose a database product which doesn't have
> > > this problem.
> > Unfortunately, like most people, I have as much freedom to choose my
> > database as I do the desktop operating system I must work with.
> >
> > And I suspect the others would be the same if only that it is clear that
> > quality doesn't sell.
>
Received on Sat Jan 12 2002 - 14:24:02 CST
