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Create Trace File for Concurrent Program

If your program is taking time to complete, then the best way to know what is causing the problem is by creating a trace file.

Navigation:
System Administrator(R) –> Concurrent –> Program –> Define

Query for the concurrent program and check enable trace button.

Now when the concurrent program is executed the trace file is created in the udump directory. The path of udump directory can be found by executing following query.
select * from v$parameter
where name like ‘%user_dump_dest%’


The trace file can be converted to a readable format by running a tkprof command over the trace file.
Syntax:

tkprof [trace_file_name] [new_file_name]

Understanding TKPROF
The TKPROF program can be used to format the contents of the trace file and convert it into a readable output file.
TKPROF can also be used to generate Explain Plan for the queries.
I will create a seperate post to discuss various options available with TKPROF.
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Password Policy and profile options

On apps there are a lot of profile options that are useful in making apps passwords difficult to guess, the profiles are

1-Signon password failure limit
2-Signon Password Length
3-Signon Password No Reuse
4-Signon Password Hard to Guess

For the first one it means how many time can I try to access the system using wrong password. It is recommended to change this value to 3. The default value is null.

The second one to allow minimum password length. The default value is 5, it is recommended to make it 6 or 7.

The 3rd profile is for not allowing using same password again for specified number of days.

The default value for 4th profile option is No. Following are the password rules if the value is set to Yes
1) The password contains at least one letter and at least one number.
2) The password does not contain the username.
3) The password does not contain consecutively repeating characters.

Reference: Metalink Note 362663.1

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Usuage of PL/SQL Wrap Utility

The PL/SQL Wrap Utility – Hide source code in Oracle

A company has a code(Package, Procedure, Function etc) with all the proprietary information and logic in it. If this information is leaked out in the market then the competitors can take advantage of it and this can affect the business. One of the way to deal with this is to hide the code from others.
This can be achieved using oracle’s WRAP utility. The advantage of WRAP utility is that this converts the source code into some language that is not understood but the code can still be compiled like any other source code.
Using Wrap is very simple. In the bin directory of Oracle Home, the wrap utility is installed. The file name could be WRAP.exe or WRAP80.exe depending on the oracle version installed.
Syntax

 C:orantBIN>wrap.exe iname=[inputfilename] oname=[outputfilename]

e.g.
 C:orantBIN>wrap.exe iname=wrap_test.sql oname=wrap_test.plb

An example of using WRAP

Create a sample procedure wrap_test using following code

CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE wrap_test
IS
BEGIN
 dbms_output.put_line(‘Wrap test complete’);
END;
/
then call the wrap utility using following
wrap.exe iname=wrap_test.sql oname=wrap_test.plb

Content of new file wrap_test.plb
CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE wrap_test wrapped
a000000
b2
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
7
4f 8d
LPjE3qKQyH/yQRCK4+efvSyST50wg5nnm7+fMr2ywFznKMB04yhSssvum3SLwMAy/tKGBvVS
m7JK/iiyveeysx0GMCyuJOqygaVR2+EC8XcG0wJd5GisbnfxwzIu9tHqJB/2OabWTW+0
/

It is very clear from this that the new code is not readable and so is completely hidden from others.
Drop your procedure(if already created) and recreate using the the new file wrap_test.plb which can be compiled as any other package. Important point here is that the source code will be hidden and cannot be read.
Another important point to remember is that once wrapped, a code cannot be unwrapped.

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Set Profile Option Value using PL/SQL

On request here is how to set the profile option value using PL/SQL

Function FND_PROFILE.SAVE can be used to set the value of any profile option at any level i.e. Site, Application, Responsibility, User etc.

Below is a sample code of how to use this function

DECLARE
   a   BOOLEAN;
BEGIN
   a := fnd_profile.SAVE (‘CONC_REPORT_ACCESS_LEVEL’
                        , ‘R’
                        , ‘USER’
                        , ‘22746’
                        , NULL
                        , NULL
                         );
   IF a
   THEN
      DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (‘Success’);
      COMMIT;
   ELSE
      DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (‘Error’);
   END IF;
END;

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Insert BLOB image file in oracle database table

Here we will discuss how to insert BLOB file in the database. For this we will create a table and then a procedure that will be used to insert records in the table.

Use following script to create an employee table

CREATE TABLE SV_EMP_PHOTO
(
  ID          NUMBER(3) NOT NULL,
  PHOTO_NAME  VARCHAR2(40),
  PHOTO_RAW   BLOB,
  EMP_NAME    VARCHAR2(80)
)

Create a directory where the photos will be stored. I am creating a directory in UNIX as our database is created in UNIX.

Create directory SV_PHOTO_DIR as ‘/u002/app/applmgr/empphoto’

Script to create a procedure SV_LOAD_IMAGE that will insert records in the table.

CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE sv_load_image (
   p_id                NUMBER
 , p_emp_name     IN   VARCHAR2
 , p_photo_name   IN   VARCHAR2
)
IS
   l_source   BFILE;
   l_dest     BLOB;
   l_length   BINARY_INTEGER;
BEGIN
   l_source := BFILENAME (‘SV_PHOTO_DIR’, p_photo_name);

   INSERT INTO sv_emp_photo
               (ID
              , photo_name
              , emp_name
              , photo_raw
               )
   VALUES      (p_id
              , p_photo_name
              , p_emp_name
              , EMPTY_BLOB ()
               )
   RETURNING   photo_raw
   INTO        l_dest;

   — lock record
   SELECT     photo_raw
   INTO       l_dest
   FROM       sv_emp_photo
   WHERE      ID = p_id AND photo_name = p_photo_name
   FOR UPDATE;

   — open the file
   DBMS_LOB.fileopen (l_source, DBMS_LOB.file_readonly);
   — get length
   l_length := DBMS_LOB.getlength (l_source);
   — read the file and store in the destination
   DBMS_LOB.loadfromfile (l_dest, l_source, l_length);

   — update the blob field with destination
   UPDATE sv_emp_photo
   SET photo_raw = l_dest
   WHERE  ID = p_id AND photo_name = p_photo_name;

   — close file
   DBMS_LOB.fileclose (l_source);
END –sv_load_image;
/
I have copied few .jpg images in /u002/app/applmgr/empphoto in UNIX.
Execute the procedure as follows to create record in database

exec sv_load_image(1,’Pavki’,’one.jpg’)
exec sv_load_image(2,’Suresh’,’two.jpg’)
exec sv_load_image(3,’Rachna’,’three.jpg’)

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