Playing Fast and Loose with multi-byte characters in Oracle

Friends, DBAs, Devs, "Lemmy" your ears...whilst we take a whistle-stop tour of how the Oracle Database handles multi-byte characters through the medium of a classic rock album.

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

My Year with Gafferbot – an AI Fantasy Football Experiment

Conclusions from my year of finding out how good ChatGPT is at Fantasy Football (not very) and why it works better as a tool than as a replacement.

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

Getting Data from Oracle into Excel using Python and Pandas

The storm has arrived. The lightning has struck and my data is lurching toward Excel...via pandas

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

Enable yum package installations in the Oracle Database App Development VM Virtualbox appliance

There was a time when installing the latest version of Oracle on a laptop was rather time-consuming and fiddly.These days however, you can spin up an Oracle database playground in minutes using VirtualBox. Oracle even provide pre-built environments in the form of Virtualbox Appliances which can be found here. Having spent some quality time with the current Oracle Database App Development appliance (Oracle Database 23AI Free running on Oracle Linux 8.8), I decided that it would be handy if I could make use of the SQLDeveloper VSCode extension within the VM.

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to connecting to Oracle from Python

Aliens are among us.If you want proof, just try getting a minor software upgrade applied to a server in a large organisation and you will be sure to run into a level of bureaucracy that can only have been conceived by Vogons.In this post, we'll be looking at the Python libraries available to connect to an Oracle Database.

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

Setting up an Oracle Wallet on a Database Server running Linux

When it comes to allowing os scripts to connect to Oracle without exposing the database password, Oracle Wallet is an effective solution.Whilst I've looked at this previously, I thought it would be useful to reproduce the steps required to set this up in a more concise post as I'll be referring to them in the near future.The steps that follow will facilitate database access from programs/scripts running on the Database Server itself without a database password being specified.

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

Linux Expectation Management – scripting password changes using expect and secret-tool

Imagine you find yourself in a situation where you need to keep the passwords of a linux account in synch across multiple servers.You don't have admin privileges, and the accounts may be used in such a way that renders use of SSH keys impractical.Depending on the number of servers involved, changing the password by hand may become something of a chore.

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

Gafferbot – All Systems Meh !

The latest installment in myongoing struggle with Artificial Intelligence on the battle ground of Fantasy Football.

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

DST diffs across the pond #JoelKallmanDay

It's that time of the year. It's time to say goodbye to summer. It's time to set the clock and get back to normal time. ... It's also time f...

kibeha.dk

Simplicity, Troubleshooting, #JoelKallmanday

TL;DR: You don't have to be a genius to solve problems. And there is no shame in not-knowing or not understanding all the geeky details. Ma...

pdvfirstblog.blogspot.com

Is SYSDATE Deterministic? #JoelKallmanDay

TL;DR No, SYSDATE is not deterministic. However, it behaves very similarly to a deterministic function within an Oracle Database SQL statement. Background On a customer site, we used faketime on the O...

salvis.com

Creating APEX report with rolling set of columns #JoelKallmanDay

The last several years I've participated in the Joel Kallman Day tributes with articles about SQL and PL/SQL. While there are no requirements for article topics, this year I wanted to contribute something within the framework Joel was best known for... APEX. Many reports aggregate data over time periods and will usually return different dates and times as distinct rows. In some reports though, it is more useful to show a rolling window of time.

seanstuber.com

Simplicity, Troubleshooting, #JoelKallmanday

TL;DR: You don't have to be a genius to solve problems. And there is no shame in not-knowing or not understanding all the geeky details. Ma...

pdvfirstblog.blogspot.com

Fixing data faux pas with flashback table #JoelKallmanDay

Triggered by traumatic DML errors ? Well, here's one flashback you won't mind having...

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

Getting Oracle to Create List Partitions automatically

I recently inherited the support of an application that had been written on Oracle 11g. One of the maintenance tasks was to create a new set of partitions every so often so that records with a new value in the list partition key could be created without erroring.Fortunately, the application is now running on 19c, which means I can just get Oracle to sort it out for me.

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

Using DBMS_OUTPUT in utPLSQL tests for procedures that don’t perform DML

This post explores how you can unit test PL/SQL procedures that do not write to the database (other than the log table) by capturing dbms_output statements for use in a utPLSQL expectation. But first, a news flash Steven Feuerstein recommends using Skippy ! Sort of. Well, not in so many words.In fact, it's unlikely that he's aware of the little known Kangaroo aptitude for PL/SQL logging.

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

The Gafferbot Supremacy – why a Goldfish Memory and inability to count are no barrier to Fantasy Football Success

The latest instalment in the existential battle for the future of Software Engineering...well...Fantasy Football bragging rights.

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

Oracle External Tables and really really long lines

One of the things I like about External Tables is that you can use them to read a file on the Database Server OS without having to leave the comfort of the database itself.Provided you have permissions on a Directory Object pointing to the appropriate directory, it's a simple matter to create an external table that you can then…

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

GafferBot – a journey into AI through the medium of Fantasy Football

The AI / Fantasy Football experiment you didn't know you needed ! The bolt has gone in, the lightning has struck, and GafferBot is lurching toward Game Week 1 as manager of Artificial Idiot. What could possibly go wrong ?

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

Passwordless connection to a Linux server using SSH

It seems that the 90s are back in fashion.Not only are Oasis currently making headlines, but England's Women have just won a penalty shootout which featured Lucy Bronze chanelling 1996-vintage Stuart Pearce.SSH also originates from the 90s, but unlike Britpop, has remained current ever since.It will work ( and is standard on) pretty much any Linux server.

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

User Defined Extensions in SQLDeveloper Classic – something you can’t do in VSCode (yet)

After 20-odd years of making my job that little bit easier, SQLDeveloper Classic still isn't quite ready for the Recycle Bin of history.

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

Setting up a Local Only SMTP server in Ubuntu

A stumble through how to get your bash scripts to send mails to your os user account on Ubuntu.

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

Fibonacci’s favourite IPL Team and the difference between ROW_NUMBER and RANK Analytic Functions

This post is really a note-to-self on the differences between the RANK and ROW_NUMBER analytic functions in Oracle SQL and why you don't need to fiddle about with the order by clause of ROW_NUMBER to persuade it to generate unique values.Now, I had planned to start by waxing lyrical about the simplicity inherent in that classic of Italian design, the Coffee Moka then segue into a demonstration of how these functions differ using the Fibonacci Sequence.

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

Backing Up your Linux Desktop to Google Drive using Deja Dup on Ubuntu

Let's face it, ensuring that you have regular backups of your home computer to a remote location can seem like a bit of a chore…right up to the time when you've managed to lose your data and need a fast and reliable way to get it back.If you're using Ubuntu, this task is made much easier by Deja Dup Backups…

mikesmithers.wordpress.com

Metal Rock GIF

Alt: Masked heavy metal singer

media.tenor.com