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From: "Jarmo" <jarmo@jarmo.com>
Newsgroups: comp.databases.oracle.tools
References: <3fbede7a$0$9390$ed9e5944@reading.news.pipex.net> <3fc1e353$0$13348$ed9e5944@reading.news.pipex.net>
Subject: Re: Oracle DBA Studio, almost useful
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 09:53:36 -0500
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"Niall Litchfield" <n-litchfield@audit-commission.gov.uk> wrote in message
news:3fc1e353$0$13348$ed9e5944@reading.news.pipex.net...
> "Jarmo" <jarmo@jarmo.com> wrote in message
> >
> > I suspect that it's complaining about the CONSTRAINT "" which it
inserted
> > when I requested that EMPLOYEEID had to be unique.  Disregarding the
fact
> > that the tool is bugged in allowing me to specify an illegal combination
> of
> > options, why must I provide a 'constraint'?  And what would it be?  Why
> > isn't it sufficient to simply state that the column must contain unique
> > values?
>
> Because you need to create a unique constraint to enforce uniqueness.

Thanks for replying Niall.  Presumably this constraint is just some kind of
textual identifier so that when Oracle detects a duplicate value in the
associated column(s) it can raise an exception containing that identifier
and hence your software can identify which column(s) were in error.  Sounds
reasonable though I've never come across a situation in which anything other
than a keyed field (or group of key fields) needed to be unique so one could
readily infer the cause from the key violation without need for any
additional information.

> > And, as an aside, can anyone tell me why Oracle persists in using arcane
> > terminology such as NVARCHAR2 (rather than String) and why it doesn't
> > support a boolean data type?  Is it a deliberate attempt to deter the
> > casual user?
>
> Well at least it has that in common with sqlserver then, which also
doesn't
> support string datatypes. Perhaps that has someting to do with standard
> compliance.

It reminds me a little of COBOL with its PIC S9(6) notation and rather
bizarre data representation.

> -- 
> Niall Litchfield
> Oracle DBA
> Audit Commission UK