What do you use to write and edit stored procedures in Oracle?

Question

There are many options for editing and writing Stored Procedures in Oracle; what is the best tool for you and why? (one tool per answer.)

Answer 1

I just used a standard editor (vim which then gave me syntax highlighting).

/Allan

Answer 2

I like SQL Developer from Oracle. Oh and its free! :)

Answer 3

I like Rapid SQL, you can debug SQL too

Answer 4

I recently found the free Oracle SQL Developer.

• nice looking GUI (makes you not poke out your eyes like the usual Oracle tools)
• has many nice features, like showing tables filtered
• lets you connect to multiple oracle instances at once
• you can use sane configuration like ip:port username/password and do not have to use those strange TNSNAMES.ORA file based settings
• you can set breakpoints and step through the code of stored procedures.

Answer 5

But some at our place swear by Toad

Answer 6

Toad, from ToadSoft.com -> http://www.toadsoft.com/toad_oracle.htm

For someone like me who likes to work with a DBA tool like Microsoft's SQL Management Studio, it's a life saver.

Answer 7

Tool for Oracle Application Developers (TOAD), from Quest Software (formerly TOADSoft) has an excellent Stored Procedure editor with syntax highlighting, some autocomplete support (e.g. type in 'TABLE.' and the columns will appear), a nice Execute Procedure option that will show the results in a Grid or show DBMS output, and will also focus on syntax errors when you hit compile.

Note: The Freeware edition only allows 2 concurrent connections to the same Database Instance (even though the website says 5) - that means only 2 developers or DBA's can use it at the same time on the same Database. It also expires every 3 months but they're good at releasing updates.

Answer 8

Notepad++ stays my favourite editor. I had to use SQL Developer in the past, it's not so "bad", but I encountered many problems with it. It proved very unstable so I wouldn't recommend it, or maybe only to test your procedures.

Answer 9

I use JetBrains IDEA (a Java IDE) to edit and SQL*Plus to execute. The advantages of using a tool with local version control, seemless integration into Source Version Control, advanced find and highlighting, great editing, 'live templates' and so on for me outweighs any advantage of having it 'database aware' (which with plug-ins you can get anyway). If I was coding up a complicated query I might fire up SQL Developer, but generally I prefer great text editing features.

Answer 10

As a professional PL/SQL developer I use (heh) PL/SQL Developer from Allaround Automations. I've worked with TOAD for quite a long time but now it is quite overpriced comparing with PL/SQL dev. It has some advantages like knowledge base or ability to work with other RDBMS like SQL server but that's not a necessity for me.

But Notepad++ will always help to make occasional fix.

Answer 11

I use Oracle SQL Developer - the latest version also has support for CVS and Subversion.

It has the bonus of supporting other database providers, too.

I have used this tool for 2 years and it has now settled down to be reliable.

Answer 12

I've used RapidSQL by Embarcadero on several different DB platforms, and it's awesome. It has an integrated step debugger, too. I haven't actually used it with Oracle, but I know it's supported.

Answer 13

Another vote for Oracle SQL Developer. It's free, it's stable and it does all the basics that I require.

Answer 14

With the mentioned SQL Developer you can even set breakpoints and step through the code of the stored procedure.

Answer 15

Yet another vote for Oracle SQl Developer. But TOAD works too.

Answer 16

Use Oracle's own SQL Developer. If you are mainly working with Oracle, it does everything you'll need.

Answer 17

I use TOAD with our Oracle reports development, and I think that it's a good development tool. I normally toggle back and forth between a number of different Oracle instances and schemae, and I like the way that TOAD can display multiple windows for each instance/schema, or even more than one per schema.

TOAD takes a little while to learn and customize, but it's a worthwhile investment. The layout is similar to the Visual Studio .NET IDE with sidebars that can be anchored or rolled away. Tabs display different aspects of the Oracle schema, including procedures, jobs, stats, etc. And when I'm writing SQL, the editor uses color-coding and the error messages are Oracle-specific.

Answer 18

Toolset for Oracle (TOra) is a free, Open Source Database Tool very similar in scope (and look and feel) to Quest's TOAD

Compared to the freeware edition of TOAD, TOra allows multiple connections to different database instances at the same time, and has no concurrent connection limit (so any number of TOra users can be working on the same database instance)

Answer 19

A really good text editor with syntax highlighting (e.g. Textpad from www.textpad.com) and SQL Plus.

Answer 20

I always use PL/SQL Developer from Allround Automations.

http://www.allroundautomations.com/plsqldev.html

Answer 21

For me its, Oracle SQL Developer. The learning curve is very minimal if you have worked on IDEs like Eclipse or VS. You can set break points, read live values when you debug stored procs as you would do to code in eclipse/VS. Ofcourse the UI is a bit sluggish at times but given that its free compensates the sluggishness.

Answer 22

I use Textpad, Clipmate and Quest SQLNavigator. The newer versions of Quest's SQLNavigator and TOAD are crap -- they tend to crash easily and don't play nice with XP/Vista/Win7.

I've spent hours with their tech support and they don't have alternatives.
You get no access to Quest programmers, but rather you get bogged down in their
trouble ticket process.

Quest needs to focus less on integration of different tools into one and selling you
promises that the next version will solve the instability issues.

They need stability.
This means cleaning up their existing codebase or starting over.
More competent programmers, fewer salespeople, fewer tech support people.
Fix the damn problems.
They focus on sales and it's an idiotic business strategy.
This seems to be a problem across the industry.

Quest's TOAD and SQL Navigator have become bloatware and will soon become abandonware
if they don't turn them around and make them more stable.

I copy and paste frequently between Textpad and Quest SQLNavigator because SQLNavigator
crashes and I lose all my sql code up to the point of crash.

I'll probably dump SQLNavigator once I find something more stable.