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From: Brian Peasland <dba@remove_spam.peasland.com>
Subject: Re: Entry of "dispatchers" parameter on Oracle 9 - how?
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> I don't remember all the Oracle error messages either,
> so I use the "oerr" utility to help me remember. Is there
> some reason why you can't do the same?

Unfortunately, the "oerr" utility gives you a generic version of the
error message. There are particulars that are left out. That's what all
of those '%s' notations are for. They stand for a string place-holders
for the information specific to their operation. So what the posters
should do is to place the exact command they issued along with their
exact error message. We could sure look up the error with oerr, but we
can't get too specific. 

Additionally, many times a user gives us what they think we need, but
they leave out important components. For instance, I post a topic where
I received an ORA-6550 error. So let's go ahead and look up this error
with oerr:

edcsns18 gasr% oerr ora 6550
06550, 00000, "line %s, column %s:\n%s"
// *Cause:  Usually a PL/SQL compilation error.
// *Action:

Great! A PL/SQL compilation error at "line %s, column %s:\n%s". So what
does this mean? What PL/SQL compilation error? The truth is that you
can't tell from my post where I mentioned that I had an ORA-6550 error.
All you can do is to give me generic advice on how to solve the problem.
Now if I had posted that my problem was the following:


SQL> begin
  2  end;
  3  /
end;
*
ERROR at line 2:
ORA-06550: line 2, column 1:
PLS-00103: Encountered the symbol "END" when expecting one of the
following:
begin case declare exit for goto if loop mod null pragma
raise return select update while with <an identifier>
<a double-quoted delimited-identifier> <a bind variable> <<
close current delete fetch lock insert open rollback
savepoint set sql execute commit forall merge
<a single-quoted SQL string> pipe


You can clearly see my ORA-6550 error. But the accompanying PLS-103
error is of much help. And it is even more helpful to see my exact
statement which caused this error. From the above, it should be obvious
that I need at least one statement between BEGIN and END. That is my
resolution! So the following works:

SQL> begin
  2  null;
  3  end;
  4  /

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.


But how could I have arrived at that conclusion with a post that just
said that I had an ORA-6550 error? I couldn't.

The moral of the story is to post your complete statement and the
complete error messages. Otherwise, important pieces of information may
be missing which could lead to incomplete resolutions of the problem.


Cheers,
Brian





-- 
===================================================================

Brian Peasland
dba@remove_spam.peasland.com

Remove the "remove_spam." from the email address to email me.


"I can give it to you cheap, quick, and good. Now pick two out of
 the three"