Toad

Written by Finn Ellebaek Nielsen. Best practices for establishing a test strategy, as well as test policies for Oracle code.

You may already be familiar with the Toad World Exclusive Freeware area from where you can download and use really useful utilities such as the PL/Vision Code Library and the Freeware version of Quest Code Tester for Oracle...

You may already be familiar with the Toad World Exclusive Freeware area from where you can download and use really useful utilities such as the PL/Vision Code Library and the Freeware version of Quest Code Tester for Oracle...

As many of you may be aware, Toad for Oracle is available in a number of different Editions and Suites...

Written by Olivier Gaudin Toad for Oracle’s Code Xpert utility (part of the Toad Professional Edition) is one of the best PL/SQL code analyzers available on the market, embedding the know-how of leading PL/SQL experts such as Steven Feuerstein...

There are always those DBA’s who refuse to use GUI tools because they prefer scripts. And that’s OK – it’s a personal preference...

As I promised earlier, the focus of this blog entry will be using the Editor in Toad for Data Analysts.The Editor is where you can enter your own SQL code to query the database.Since you’re already familiar with Toad for Oracle’s Editor, you’ll notice some similarities in Toad for Data...

Toad for Data Analysts v2.5 is just around the corner. In anticipation of the release, I want to highlight a few of the enhancements that we've made to the product. I'll be posting a new feature every few weeks, so stay tuned!

In Part III of this series of blogs, I’ll discuss the Query Builder in Toad for Data Analysts.In my previous entry, I said that I would talk about both the Editor and the Query Builder in Part III.Both features are so rich that I feel that separating the topics would be the best approach.So,...

Sometimes people will have a problem getting a TOAD feature to work – such as the PL/SQL debugger or profiler. For example a user might run TOAD and not be able to select or highlight the debugger icon on the main toolbar...

In Quest SQL Optimizer when you generate alternative SQL statements for your original SQL statement you may be presented with hundreds of SQL alternatives. The only way to be completely sure that you have the fastest one is to run all the SQL alternatives...

I was on the phone with a Quest Code Tester user the other day and he asked me if I was working on the next edition of my original "magnum opus", Oracle PL/SQL Programming, which would include Oracle11g features. I cannot describe to you how good it felt to say: "No, I'm not working on it...

So if you’re reading this blog, hopefully that means you’ve just finished watching my ‘Discover the Hidden Treasuresof Toad for Oracle, Developers’ presentation at our 2009 Toad Virtual Expo.If not, then you can still watch this 45 minute presentation for the immediate 60 days after the...

Version 1.8.3 of Quest Code Tester is now available for downloading from Quest's on-line SupportLink (after being prompted to log in you will be taken directly to the download page). I strongly urge all Code Tester users to upgrade to this version...

In this blog, I hope to be able to help you understand how Unicode is handled on your Windows PC/notebook and how to configure your PC/notebook in order to be able to effectively use Unicode in Toad.

Previously, we discussed how to establish connections to the database.If you’re interested in a refresher, the entry can be found here:http://www.toadworld.com/Community/Blogs/tabid/67/EntryID/382/Default.aspxNow that we’ve connected to the database, we’ll examine how to work with the...

As some of you may already be aware, we are releasing our next version of Toad (version 10.0) later this year and it will have one or two “under the cover” differences. Unicode support is one of those differences and is probably one of the most significant technology upgrades in Toad’s hi

When you are executing SQL statements to find which one is the best, you need to take into consideration the factors that can skew the accuracy of the results of the testing. This blog discusses eliminating the effect of network traffic when you are comparing SQL run times.

If there's one thing we hear people asking about it's "How can I use Toad for Data Analysts to automatically upate my Excel report?" This blog entry is dedicated to just that...

I am often asked about the naming conventions and coding standards that I use. My answer is usually a combination of muttering and vague statements and hand-waving. That's because I have a confession: I don't have a single naming conventions and coding standards document that I use. Why not...

In this series of blog topics, I will attempt to translate certain features in Toad for Data Analysts for those of you who are more familiar with Toad for Oracle.As you may (or may not) know, Quest Software allows licensed owners of Toad for Oracle 9.7 to use Toad for Data Analysts free of...

In humble tribute to the great southern comedian, Jeff Foxworthy, I thought I’d try a send up on this popular theme as it pertains to Toad.So here goes.If you have your own suggestions, just leave them as comments at the end of the blog...

For all of us who use Toad regularly, we probably take for granted all of the time-saving features available in the product. Sure, Toad has obvious time-savers, like SQL tuning rewrites and the formatter; what is often missed is the way in which these seemingly small features benefit businesses...

The last two posts have covered popular misconceptions or “urban myths” myths when measuring and performing benchmarks. That might seem like the “whole enchilada”, but there's yet one more critical aspect to successful benchmarking – preparation...

Written by Finn Ellebaek Nielsen Introduction This post is the first in a series on various aspects of automated Oracle code testing and is probably longer than most of my future ones...

Written by Rene Woody This blog is a continuation of a series about test running the SQL statements in the Tuning Lab in Quest SQL Optimizer for Oracle to find the best performing SQL statement in your database environment...

When you ask Oracle for an execution plan with Toad, we insert the plan into a plan table (configurable by the user.) Wow, that’s 36 pieces of information that could be included in every single plan step...

I recently performed 3 separate Toad for Oracle web demonstrations for a large company in the payroll and human resources industry. Rather than a general overview of all Toad features, these 3 demos were customized for 3 different types of Toad users: DBA's, Analysts, and Developers...

The title says it all – there is no such thing. This is the second benchmarking myth or “urban legend” that needs exposed. However this is the most prevalent frustration or exasperation that people attempting database benchmarks experience – and experience the hard way (i.e...

Written by Steven Feuerstein Greetings, Oracle technologists, and welcome to the "Real Automated Code Testing for Oracle" blog. Following in the grand tradition of acronym-ing everything, I will (maybe) refer to this blog as the RACTO blog...

While we are still quite a few months away from officially releasing the next version of Toad for Oracle, there are a few exciting developments to share with you today.Of course, you can follow the development of the next version of Toad yourself via the beta program, but we realize not everyone...

As with many facets of life, database benchmarking has several myths or “urban legends” that need summarily dispelled.So I’m going to write a few short blogs focusing one by one on some of these misunderstood database benchmarking issues...

Like most applications, Preferences or Options enable the user to make changes to the default configuration to suit the way they work. The same is true for Toad but there are so many, it can be a bit of a challenge finding what you are looking for...

Written by Rene Woody This blog is a continuation of a series about test running the SQL statements in the Tuning Lab in Quest SQL Optimizer for Oracle to find the best performing SQL statement in your database environment...

One question that has been coming up lately is how I can randomize my SQL so that not every user is submitting the same statements. This is very important in creating a realistic workload to correctly perform a database performance test...

This blog is the second in a series about common misconceptions surrounding SQL tuning. It covers the misconception that the goal of SQL tuning is to write a better SQL statement...

Every month, a Toad World newsletter goes out to thousands of Toad users and it includes a monthly puzzle that I write. Last month's puzzle went like this: Which of the following blocks does not contain an infinite loop? A...

In case you simply can't get enough of Steven Feuerstein (no, I don't generally talk about my self in the third person or in the royal "we"), I invite you to check out this interview. I had an awful lot of fun answering the questions, and you might be entertained reading them.

Written by Rene Woody This blog is the first of a series about test running the SQL statements in the Tuning Lab in Quest SQL Optimizer for Oracle to find the best performing SQL statement in your database environment...

Written by Rene Woody This blog is a continuation of a series about the SQL optimization process in the Batch Optimizer and the Tuning Lab modules of Quest SQL Optimizer for Oracle. It explains how to generate SQL alternatives that do not have Oracle optimization hints...

It's truly one of the oddities of the PL/SQL language that it does not offer a delimited string parsing program...

Recently there have been a lot of questions on some of the features of Toad Data Modeler which are part of the basic components ofthe tool but for whatever reason people seem to have a bit of trouble figuring them out...

This was a question I got this morning from a customer.I showed them how to do this with the ‘Alter’ dialog in Toad’s Schema Browser.However, they wanted to do it for more than one table at a time, and apparently some OTHER tool could do so.Why couldn’t Toad...

In this week’s blog, I’d like to introduce you to Toad’s Formatter. For those older “Toadies”, you’ll be familiar with its predecessor For

If you’re like many of the analysts I speak with on a regular basis, then you use Microsoft Excel. It’s a staple of the Information Age, right!? It seems like you can do everything but wash your car with Excel...

Developers are hard people to satisfy. Oracle gives us this incredibly robust, powerful and easy to use database programming language – and all we can do is complain about what it doesn't do for us...