Re: Three Question For The Price of One!

DcS,
1. If your developers have used Primary Key and Foreign Key constraints, you can get a nice map of your data.

    You can use one of the existing GUI tools like :     Oracle Designer, ErWin, Visio.
    Other option is to use some of the existing dictionary views:

    USER_OBJECTS
    USER_TABLES
    USER_TAB_COLUMNS
    USER_CONSTRAINTS

2. Oracle client comes with ODBC Test program. Start with this to diagnose your ODBC connection

    before you try to connect from Access.

3. Before you buy books, just try existing Oracle help system. This is very good starting point, and you already have it.

Bonus: IMHO you are correct, there is no benefit in SSN to be a NUMBER.

HTH
Thomas

"ThatDaveGuy" <Th_at_tDave.Guy> wrote in message news:6s4mstganc1maa2tp7everafqai53cff96_at_4ax.com...
> Please help a new Oracle user with the following:
>
> 1) We have this enormously complex sytem based on -you guessed it-
> Oracle. The developers gave us a wonderful query builder tool so we
> can get info on our own. Like I said, it's wonderful --BUT-- they
> refuse to give us a map of the database so we rarely know where to
> look for the info we want. And since I'm in charge of writting
> queries, guess who gets stumped the most. My question: how can I
> create a comprehensive data-map that will help me build my queries and
> get the info I'm after the 1st (or even 2nd) time?
>
> 2) Some of these queries would be simpler to run from (gasp!) Access.
> But for the life of me I can't get an ODBC connection working. A
> little help here?
>
> 3) I'm willing to let the moths out of the boss' wallter and buy some
> reference books. Can I get some suggestions for the best 2 or 3?
>
> Bonus:
> What is the prevailing thought on field type? Specifically, our
> programmer used a numeric field for SSN. I've always worked on the
> theory that numeric fields should only be used if any sort of math is
> to be performed on the data. This is only really a problem for us
> when we export data and leading zeros get dropped. That wouldn't
> happen if SSN were held in a text field. Your thoughts?
>
> Thanks!!!
>
> DcS
>
>
Received on Tue Oct 16 2001 - 04:17:35 CEST