21st Century PL/SQL

May 19, 2005

Add Unit Test support

Instead of asking developers, or some "3rd party" code, to manage their unit tests, add unit testing to the database.

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Add a command like:

CREATE UNIT TEST abc ON xyz AS <code> END;

The unit test code would return an integer of the number of tests that failed, zero meaning success. The DBMS would execute the unit test whenever the base procedure is compiled and return a warning message if any tests failed.

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An alternative coding technique would be to have the unit test to throw an exception rather than return an integer.

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In either case the important aspect is that the DBMS automatically executes the Unit Test at compilation time and that the Data dictionary records which procedures passed their tests and which failed.

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Steven

Posted by Steven Ensslen at 07:12 PM | Add your thoughts (1)

June 23, 2005

Allow arbitrary depth of package hierarchies

It would be good to be able to have any number of levels in a package hierarchy, much like in C#-namespaces or in Java-packages. Then it would be possible to have much more structured and reasonable naming-policies and also avoid tempting DBAs to employ schemas as top-level packages. Here are some additional details:

What I'm looking for is to be able to have a package called say:

graphics.twodim.line

So if I define it belonging to the schema Runtime, then its function intersects(x1,y1,x2,y2) could be referenced by anyone writing:

Runtime.graphics.twodim.line.intersects(x1,y1,x2,y2)

Another package residing at the Runtime.graphics level (say, Runtime.graphics.surface) could reference the same function using twodim.line.intersects(x1,y1,x2,y2)... and so on

This would be similar to the way packages are managed in Java, and namespaces in C#, and would allow (in my opinion) a better structure to many complex PL/SQL systems that now rely on complex package-names to indicate structure and relations.

I currently work in a setting where we have hundreds of packages and long ago started to use schemas to get a fake second level to the package-hierarchy only for the purpose of structure. This means some unnecessary granting and security concerns since the schemas are used somewhat out of their natural context. Especially for people new to our system (like myself) this seems strange and contrived, and I imagine a fix would be easy(?).

Posted by Øyvind Mo at 07:04 AM | Add your thoughts (1)

January 23, 2006

some kind of global listener

it would be nice if i may register a kind of global listener in a package. e.g. i do some processing or checks in various private routines. if one of the checks fails i want to set the listener to false. then the package should react to this event so i have not to use if/then/else in the master routine.

Posted by daniel westermann at 10:47 AM | Add your thoughts (1)