How to find foreign-key dependencies pointing to one record in Oracle?

Question

Hi folks,

I have a very large Oracle database, with many many tables and millions of rows. I need to delete one of them, but want to make sure that dropping it will not break any other dependent rows that point to it as a foreign key record. Is there a way to get a list of all the other records, or at least table schemas, that point to this row? I know that I could just try to delete it myself, and catch the exception, but I won't be running the script myself and need it to run clean the first time through.

I have the tools SQL Developer from Oracle, and PL/SQL Developer from AllRoundAutomations at my disposal.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I always look at the Foreign keys for the starting table and work my way back. The DB tools usually have a dependencies or constraints node. I know L/SQL Developer has a way to see FK's, but it's been a while since I have used it, so I can't explain it...

just replace XXXXXXXXXXXX with a table name...

/* The following query lists all relationships */ 

select
 a.owner||'.'||a.table_name "Referenced Table"
,b.owner||'.'||b.table_name "Referenced by"
,b.constraint_name "Foreign Key"
from all_constraints a, all_constraints b 
where 
b.constraint_type = 'R'
and a.constraint_name = b.r_constraint_name 
and b.table_name='XXXXXXXXXXXX' -- Table name 
order by a.owner||'.'||a.table_name

Answer 2

We can use the data dictionary to identify the tables which reference the primary key of the table in question. From that we can generate some dynamic SQL to query those tables for the value we want to zap:

SQL> declare
  2      n pls_integer;
  3      tot pls_integer := 0;
  4  begin
  5      for lrec in ( select table_name from user_constraints
  6                    where r_constraint_name = 'T23_PK' )
  7      loop
  8          execute immediate 'select count(*) from '||lrec.table_name
  9                              ||' where col2 = :1' into n using &&target_val;
 10          if n = 0 then
 11              dbms_output.put_line('No impact on '||lrec.table_name);
 12          else
 13              dbms_output.put_line('Uh oh! '||lrec.table_name||' has '||n||' hits!');
 14          end if;
 15          tot := tot + n;
 16      end loop;
 17      if tot = 0
 18      then
 19          delete from t23 where col2 = &&target_val;
 20          dbms_output.put_line('row deleted!');
 21      else
 22          dbms_output.put_line('delete aborted!');
 23      end if;
 24  end;
 25  /
Enter value for target_val: 6
No impact on T34
Uh oh! T42 has 2 hits!
No impact on T69
delete aborted!

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL>

This example cheats a bit. The name of the target primary key is hardcoded, and the referencing column has the same name on all the dependent tables. Fixing these issues is left as an exercise for the reader ;)