Re: Query tool for smart usersQ

Sybrand Bakker (gooiditweg_at_nospam.demon.nl) wrote: : On 23 Nov 2003 11:28:35 -0800, phil_at_querytool.com (Phil Castle) wrote:
: >The one I recommend (since I wrote it) is Advanced Query Tool at

: Thank you for spamming us and promoting your own product.

Oh come on. The poster asked "Can anyone suggest a better tool," and phil answered with his (presumably honest) opinion. The post is completely on topic, posted to a sigle group, and clearly states he has a vested interest in it. If some other happy user had suggested this you wouldn't call it spam.

As for the original question, SQL*PLus with a few canned queries and correct working habits and some written examples is not that bad a tool at all, and has the advantage that it is always available if oracle is available. When you get used to the column selection it uses then you realize it works very well with the column oriented data from the database.

o canned queries

point the sqlplus script path to a utility directory, and provide some basic scripts with names like TABLES, VIEWS, WHOAMI, etc. (and make them display the "obvious" things

        SQL> _at_TABLES -- list tables, optional argument is a filter

        SQL> _at_VIEWS '%REPORT%' -- etc

o correct working habits.

I suggest keeping an editor open and composing the queries in there. That provides a great "notepad" that can be saved between sessions, which provides a good reference to yourself for later work. Cut and paste the query text into (and out of) sqlplus takes but a trivial number of keystrokes (use the ALT key to pull up the edit menu and select the menu item, as opposed to other shortcut keystrokes). Arrange the sqlplus window correctly and the menus and menu bar becomes much easier to grab with the mouse.

o written examples.

Give them a short "cheat sheet" with typical queries using _your_ tables. If you put it in a file they can use that as the initial version of the "notepad" that I mentioned above.

Show them how to assign the sqlplus current directory to some useful directory for spooling. (That directory also becomes the place that they can put there own utility queries for later.) There are various ways, I usually start it from the command line from within what ever directory is appropriate for the project I'm working on.

$0.02 Received on Thu Dec 11 2003 - 21:37:43 CET