Tool for code Navigation in PL/SQL

Question

I have to study and modify a big and poorly documented codebase written in pl/sql. I use Oracle SQL Developer to navigate through it, but it become tedious because there is not a "go to declaration" nor "find usages" option so I have to go manually to the referred package to find the function or procedure I want to understand, or grep an offline copy to find the usages.

I have tried to setup vim+ctags, but exuberant ctags gets confused by case insensitiviness.

So the question is, which tools allow to easily navigate through PL/SQL code?

Answer 1

Hi Samuel,

PL/SQL Developer, from Allround Automations has some nice features to navigate through code. You can download and install a full-feature trial version that will last you one month. Afterwards, if you like the tool and want to go on using it, you will have to pay a (modest) fee.

Answer 2

Try Tobys PLSQL Editor. It gives you:

• Syntax highlighting
• F3 jump to code
• Package outlines
• Code completion
• Compile to database with error highlighting
• Auto header generation using PLDoc

I'm still searching for a good tool to look at dependencies. You can query the data dictionary to find package dependencies but it doesn't go down to the level of procedures/functions within the packages themselves or line numbers within each package.

Answer 3

I have recently switched from Oracle's SQL Developer to Quest's TOAD and I love it ! What I like most about TOAD is the debuging tool. The capabilities I use can be found in both products but TOAD to me is a little easier to use, but SQL Developer is "free".

Answer 4

hi, I would also need a tool that can show dependencies within my pl/sql code. I use Oracle SQL Developer (have migrated from TOAD because it has some better features and its free), BareGrep to search in bat files that starts my packages and exported copies of pl sql code. By the way, is there a tool that exports pl/sql code to files with one package per file? In SQL Developer you would normaly export everything into one file.

Answer 5

See the SD Source Code Search Engine for a tool which does searches far faster than grep over large bodies of source code, by preindexing the source code. The Search Engine is language sensitive, so you can form queries in terms of langauge identifiers, numbers, keywords, and operators. Whitespace and comments don't fool it.

It works for PL/SQL as well as many other languages (C, C++, C#, COBOL, Java, ...).