Partition Info in V$SESSION_LONGOPS

Oracle’s advanced partitioning has some deficiencies. For example, partition info is missing in V$SESSION_LONGOPS for scan-operations ( full table scans, full index scans ). V$SESSION_LONGOPS.TARGET only shows OWNER.TABLE_NAME in these cases, even when the underlying table/index is partitioned, though the longop doesn’t refer to the whole segment but only to one (sub-)partition of it.
I filed an enhancement request several years ago concerning this matter, but never received any feedback.
However, there is a workaround to that. In many cases, we can find out on which (sub-) partition the longop is working on: V$SESSION_WAIT’s P1- and P2-info can be used for that in case the session is waiting mainly on I/O ( which might be most likely for many systems. )
Here is an extension to V$SESSION_LONGOPS which tries to figure out this additional info:

select
   coalesce(
        (
            select 'does not apply'
            from dual
            where slo.TARGET not like '%.%'
            or slo.TARGET is null
        ),
        (
            select 'does not apply'
            from dba_tables dt
            where dt.OWNER=substr(slo.target, 1, instr(slo.target, '.') - 1)
            and dt.TABLE_NAME=substr(slo.target, instr(slo.target, '.') + 1)
            and dt.PARTITIONED='NO'        
        ),
        (
            select 
               de.partition_name || ' (' || de.segment_type || ')'
            from v$session_wait sw, dba_extents de
            where
              sw.sid=slo.sid
            and slo.opname like '%Scan%'
            and sw.P1TEXT like 'file%'
            and sw.P1 = de.FILE_ID and sw.P2 between de.BLOCK_ID and de.BLOCK_ID + de.BLOCKS - 1
            and de.owner = substr(slo.target, 1, instr(slo.target, '.') - 1)
            and de.segment_type in 
            (
               'TABLE PARTITION', 'TABLE SUBPARTITION',
               'INDEX PARTITION', 'INDEX SUBPARTITION'             
            )
            and de.segment_name in 
            (
                 -- table
                 select 
                    substr(slo.target, instr(slo.target, '.') + 1)
                 from dual
                 union all
                 -- index
                 select di.index_name
                 from dba_indexes di
                 where di.owner=substr(slo.target, 1, instr(slo.target, '.') - 1)
                 and di.TABLE_NAME = substr(slo.target, instr(slo.target, '.') + 1)
            )
         ),
        'unknown'
      )
   as partition_info,     
   slo.*
from v$session_longops slo
where slo.TIME_REMAINING > 0

Note that this might take a bit longer than a simple

select slo.*
from v$session_longops slo
where slo.TIME_REMAINING > 0

, though due to coalesce’s short circuiting it is quite efficient.

(UTL_RAW.)CAST_TO_DATE

Tim wrote
… the UTL_RAW package has a bunch of casting functions for RAW values (CAST_TO_BINARY_DOUBLE, CAST_TO_BINARY_FLOAT, CAST_TO_BINARY_INTEGER, CAST_TO_NUMBER, CAST_TO_NVARCHAR2, CAST_TO_VARCHAR2). Note the absence of a CAST_TO_DATE function.

Bertrand Drouvot also misses it, see Bind variable peeking: Retrieve peeked and passed values per execution in oracle 11.2

Here is a try to write one, fixes and improvements are welcome !

create or replace function CAST_TO_DATE(bdr in raw) return date deterministic is
begin
  return
     date'1-1-1'
     + NUMTOYMINTERVAL(
         100 * (to_number(substr(bdr,1,2), 'xx') - 100) + 
         to_number(substr(bdr,3,2), 'xx') - 101, 
       'year')
     + NUMTOYMINTERVAL(to_number(substr(bdr,5,2), 'xx')-1, 'month')
     + NUMTODSINTERVAL(to_number(substr(bdr,7,2), 'xx')-1, 'day')
     + NUMTODSINTERVAL(to_number(substr(bdr,9,2), 'xx') - 1, 'hour')   
     + NUMTODSINTERVAL(to_number(substr(bdr,11,2), 'xx') - 1, 'minute')   
     + NUMTODSINTERVAL(to_number(substr(bdr,13,2), 'xx') - 1, 'second');
  exception when others then return to_date(1, 'J');
end CAST_TO_DATE;   
/

A simple pipelined version of print_table

Tom Kyte’s print_table procedure, available on
http://asktom.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=100:11:0::::P11_QUESTION_ID:1035431863958#14442395195806
seems to be very popular and there exist tricky variations on the theme, for example the following nice xml-trick by Sayan Malakshinov.

Please note that it is very easy to use the existing print_table-code to generate a pipelined version which can be used in SQL.
I use the following code since ages and it always does me a great job, so probably it is worth sharing.

create or replace function fprint_table
( p_query in varchar2,
  p_date_fmt in varchar2 default 'dd-mon-yyyy hh24:mi:ss' )
return sys.odcivarchar2list 
authid current_user
pipelined
   is
l varchar2(4000);
s integer default 1;
begin
  dbms_output.enable(buffer_size => null);
  
  print_table(
     p_query => p_query,
     p_date_fmt => p_date_fmt
  );

  loop
     dbms_output.get_line(line => l, status => s);
     exit when s != 0;
     begin
        pipe row(l);
     exception when no_data_needed then exit;
     end;
  end loop;
    
  return;

end fprint_table;
/

sokrates@11.2 > select * from table(fprint_table('select user,sysdate from dual'));

USER                          : SOKRATES
SYSDATE                       : 10-apr-2013 12:27:50
-----------------
1 row selected.

An undocumented restriction in Workspace Manager – exporting tables with valid time support

If you are using Workspace Manager, it could be probably useful to know, that there is an undocumented restriction concerning import/export.
Due to Import and Export Considerations,
…Workspace Manager supports the import and export of version-enabled tables in one of the following two ways: a full database import and export, and a workspace-level import and export through Workspace Manager procedures. No other export modes, such as schema, table, or partition level, are currently supported….

However, this does not hold for tables with valid time support:

sokrates@11.2 > CREATE TABLE d (id NUMBER PRIMARY KEY);

Table created.

sokrates@11.2 > EXECUTE DBMS_WM.EnableVersioning (table_name=>'D', validTime=>TRUE, hist => 'NONE');

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

sokrates@11.2 >  EXECUTE DBMS_WM.Export(table_name => 'D',staging_table => 'D_STG', workspace => 'LIVE');
BEGIN DBMS_WM.Export(table_name => 'D',staging_table => 'D_STG', workspace => 'LIVE'); END;

*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-20171: WM error: Export not supported on a table with valid time
ORA-06512: at "WMSYS.LT", line 13185
ORA-06512: at line 1

Support confirmed, that in this case only full db import/export (!) is supported, documentation would be updated somewhen.

Learning foreign languages with Oracle SQL

with y as
(
   select 
      add_months(date'2012-01-01', level-1) monn, 
      to_char(add_months(date'2012-01-01', level-1), 'MONTH') mon
   from dual
   connect by level<=12
)
select 
   value as language, 
   y.mon, 
   to_char(y.monn, 'MONTH', q'|nls_date_language='|' || value || q'|'|') month, 
   to_char(y.monn, 'MON', q'|nls_date_language='|' || value || q'|'|') month_s
from v$nls_valid_values n, y
where n.parameter='LANGUAGE'
order by language, y.monn

TRADITIONAL CHINESE looks easy