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PL/SQL redux

I’ve written about PL/SQL before but recently have spent a significant amount of time writing stored procedures. Unlike some of my previous experiences, this time PL/SQL seemed like a great fit for the problem set, which was two fold.

In the first case, some of the stored procedures push data from stage tables, which are loaded via ODBC or SQL*Loader, into tables which the application accesses. PL/SQL is great for this type of task because cursors, especially when used with parameters, make row driven data transformations a pleasure, and fast as well. Handling deltas via updates instead of inserts was alright, and the fact is that PL/SQL code that manipulates data can be positively terse when compared to JDBC PreparedStatements and at least as fast. In addition, these stored procedures can be easily called over an ODBC connection, giving the client the capability to load new data to the stage tables and then call the stored procedure to update or insert the data as needed. (You could definitely do the same thing with a servlet and have the client hit a URL, but that’s a bit less self-contained.)

PL/SQL was also used to implement complex logic that was likely to change. Why do that in PL/SQL in the database rather than in java in the application server? Well, changes to PL/SQL programs don’t require a server restart, which can be quite an issue when a server needs high levels of uptime. Instead, you just recompile the PL/SQL. Sure, you can use the reloadable attribute of the context to achieve the same thing (if you’re using Tomcat) but recompiling PL/SQL doesn’t have the same performance hit as monitoring class files for changes.

Use the right tool for the job. Even if PL/SQL ties your application to Oracle, a judicious use of this language can have significant benefits.