Offline Database Definitions with Oracle JDeveloper 10g-Reconciling with Online
Schema
JDeveloper 10g allows developers to work with database objects offline (without
interacting directly with a database). Developers can import and then edit schema from
an existing database or create new database definitions offline from scratch. Some of the
activities one can perform with offline database definitions include generating diagrams
and creating SQL DDL files to run against databases.
JDeveloper even provides a Reconcile feature that will create a DDL script with the
needed ALTER commands to change an online database schema to match the changes
ade to the offline schema, which is very useful for making changes to a test database in a
controlled way. Changes can be made by generating an offline schema from the online
database, then changing the offline schema and generating a DDL script to run against
the test database. After testing this same SQL script would then be run against other test
databases and ultimately against production.
This tutorial creates an offline schema version of the PO Example tables from the ML
book, adds several fields to the EMPLOYEE table, creates an new offline table
EMPLOYEE_SAL, then generates DDL scripts to change the database to match the
offline changes..
Select New to open the New Gallery.
Select Offline Database Objects from the Database Tier list. Then Select Offline
Database Objects Imported from Database. Then click OK to begin the Import
Offline Database Objects wizard.
Name the offline schema:
Select database to Connect to to capture schema:
Select Objects to load into offline schema (below ACCOUNT, DEPARTMENT and
EMPLOYEE tables are selected):
New Offline schema is shown below in the Navigator:
Double-click on the EMPLOYEE table to open the Edit Offline Table dialog below.
Here one can add or change fields, etc. Below the ADDRESS field is added:
After adding CITY, STATE and ZIP fields and closing the Edit dialog these new
fields now appear in the Structure view below:
Right-click on OFFLINE_PO_SCHEMA and select New Offline Table. This starts
the wizard below:
Below the new table EMPLOYEE_SAL is added with 3 fields:
To create the DDL files, Right-click again on OFFLINE_PO_SCHEMA and select
Generate or Reconcile Objects:
For changes, select UPDATE to generate an ALTER script for the added fields:
The SQL script appears in JDevleoper-it is also listed in the Resources folder:
For the new EMPLOYEE_SAL table, select CREATE to generate the Creation SQL
script:
Below is the creation script for creating the new EMPLOYEE_SAL table:
Written by: Wayne Holle ([email protected])