“DROP object IF EXISTS” in Oracle?

When you run installations and patches you often have log files full of error messages that can be ignored, such as dropping objects that don’t exist prior to creating them, or in some cases creating objects that already exist. As a result, trying to identify “real” errors is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

It would be nice if these meaningless errors could be supressed. I guess it would be a little like the IGNORE=Y option in the import utility.

Of course, there is a judgement call about what constitutes a real error. In some cases, an object not being present when you try to drop it signifies something is very wrong, but for many scripts it’s no big deal.

If Oracle included a “DROP object IF EXISTS” syntax like mySQL, and maybe even a “CREATE object IF MISSING” syntax, it would be a real bonus.

I feel an enhancement request coming on 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Update: The enhancement request has now been logged on Metalink (ER# 5151826) 🙂

Disaster Recovery, Solaris and Inside Man…

I’ve just started another disaster recovery test week. I’ve got to install/recover the whole of the production environment, including 10g RAC in Tru64, Cold-Failover Cluster Infratructure on Linux and Application Servers. As a result, might get a little quiet over the next week…

As well as testing some FC5 stuff, see previous post, I installed Solaris 10 on x86-32 at the weekend. It was pretty straight forward, but it took forever to complete. I ended up leaving it over night. I don’t know if this was because it’s just slow, or whether it was an issue with VMware Server. Once it had finished I started thinking about an Oracle installation, then I noticed that 10g is not available for Solaris 10 on x86-32, just x86-64. Bummer! I might end up writing a Solaris operating system installation document, just so I don’t feel like I’ve wasted the time 🙂

On Saturday night I went to see The Inside Man. I thought it was a cool film, but it’s one of those films that twists and turns constantly. If you like heist films, then you’ll probably dig it, but avoid reading any reviews that mention content, because it would be really easy to ruin the film…

Cheers

Tim…

Fedora Core 5 (FC5) Update…

A lot has been said about Fedora Core 5 (FC5) recently, so I thought I would pull together a few things of interest.

Q. Where can you get it from?
A. Try here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Distribution/Download

Q. What is it like?
A. I like the review by Howard Rogers.
Q. Can I install Oracle Database 10g Release 2 on it?
A. There has been a lot of hot air produced (mostly by me) this week about this question, but the answer seems to be NO! Here is a draft installation guide I wrote against a beta version of FC5, but so far I’ve had no luck getting this installation to work on the final release of FC5. I’ve decided to leave the article on my site as a testament to my failure 🙂 Please add to the comments if you have any workarounds.

Q. Can I install Oracle AS10g Release 3 on it?
A. Strangely enough, this seems to work fine. I wrote this installation guide against a beta version of FC5 and it works fine against the final release also. Miracles never cease 🙂 Of course, installing and being stable are two very different things!

Q. Can I use FC5 as a VMware Server host or client?
A. Yes you can, but it’s not exactly straight forward and reliable. The VMware forums will help you get it sorted, specifically these threads (host, client).

Q. What do you think about, FC5 Tim? (Asking yourself a question is kinda freaky :))
A. I don’t like it. My main interest is in server software and FC5 seems to break just about everything it touches, so CentOS4 (a Red Hat clone) is the obvious choice for me.

I hope this information will make life a bit quicker and easier for anyone reading.

Cheers

Tim…

Technical Publishing…

Mark Rittman has an interesting article called “The State of the Technical Publishing Market“.

While I agree you are unlikely to make money from writing technical books, I still feel it has some value.

I was interested in the whole publishing thing for some time before I was offered the opportunity to write a book. It was nice to see the whole process in action.

A quick look at my website will show you the range of skills I’ve had to pick up over the years. Unless you constantly try to re-educate yourself, it’s easy to get locked into a state of mind where you only ever do what you know. I feel that writing articles for my website has helped prevent me from stagnating, but it’s not always enough. Writing a book on a specific topic forces you to focus your attention on that area, extending your knowledge beyond what you may normally achieve. There’s nothing like a deadline to focus your attention.

It’s a giant ego trip seeing your name in black and white. Of course I could publish a PDF with the same content, but regardless of what anybody says, it isn’t the same as holding a book in your hands.

I guess the funniest thing about publishing is people’s reactions. I’ve been writing web articles for years, serving tens of millions of pages each year to people all over the world. Mention that to somebody and you’re just another geek who thinks he has something to say. On the other hand, mention you’ve written a book and you’re a guru… What’s that all about?

What’s my opinion? Everyone should write at least one book in their life! 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Lego Rules…

I recently found out one of my colleagues is a “Lego Master Builder”. He was given the title after he produced a full size guitar, or something like that…

Anyway, that little fact made the following list jump out at me when I saw it:

Top 10 Strangest Lego Creations

I use visits to my 4 year old nephew as an excuse play with Lego and relive my childhood. Although, I seldom build anything better than the USB stick 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle Community… As if…

I’m pretty pissed off this morning. It seems I’m at the center of some “Oracle on FC5” conspiracy because a few idiots can’t be bothered to read articles properly. The article in question is:

https://oracle-base.com/articles/10g/oracle-db-10gr2-installation-on-fedora-5.php

The original warning at the top of the article read:

“THIS IS A DRAFT DOCUMENT. It will be revised when the final version of FC5 is released.”

Apparently, this meant it was a fully finished article that should be trusted implicitly! See the conspiracy:

comp.databases.oracle.server

Also, it seems I should reply to comments while I’m sleeping.

Oracle community… My arse!

Tim…

Back to work…

I was off work for 3 days last week with a sinus infection. I spent most of the time sleeping, which was good as it cleared up really quickly. The bummer is that all the time in bed has left my back in a bit of a state. It doesn’t like being stationary for too long.

I guess the next couple of days will knock everything back into place.

Cheers

Tim…