You can run the following command syntax to give the grant to user SCOTT.

GRANT EXECUTE ON SYS.DBMS_UTILITY TO SCOTT;

Caution: Some of the commands that you can run are very long running processes – so take appropriate action if required i.e. inform other users or DBA if you want to recompile whole of your schema or analize the schema or database.

See the example how this package can be used to perform the following task:

• exec_ddl_statement – To execute DDL statement
  

• compile_schema – To compile objects in a schema
  

• analyze_schema – To analyze objects in a schema
  

• analyze_database – To analyze objects in a database
  

• is_parallel_server – To find out if database server is running in parallel server mode
  

• get_time – To get current time in 100th’s of a second
  

• get_parameter_value – to get a given init.ora parameter value and type
  

• port_string – To get operating system version and port of the operatign system
  

• db_version – To get database version and compatibility information
  

• analyze_part_object – To analyze partitions in Table/Index
  

• is_cluster_database – To find out if the database is in CLUSTER mode
  

• current_instance – To find out the instance number – in RAC Only
  

• get_cpu_time – To get current CPU time in 100th’s of a second
  

• get_dependency – To get DEPENDENCY information on an object

.

However the subject of this posting is not locks but Seep procedure in the DBMS_LOCK package.

In most of the programming languages you will find some form of technique where you can wait/sleep for some specified amount of time. This SLEEP/WAIT functionality may be required for different number of reason. For example, suppose you want to insert a record into a table every 5 seconds. In Microsoft SQL Server you will just use “waitfor” command which is a part of the T-SQL programming language. But how will you do that in Oracle. Here is how:.

Example: This example will insert a record in table t_sleep_test. Then wait for 5 seconds. Then insert another record.

1. Create table t_sleep_test

create table t_sleep_test(
run_cnt number,
date_time date);

2. Create a stored procedure which will add the record every 5 seconds.

create or replace procedure p_sleep_test is
l_cnt number;
begin
l_cnt := 0;
execute immediate ‘truncate table t_sleep_test’;
for l_cnt in 1..10 loop
insert into t_sleep_test values (l_cnt, sysdate);commit;
dbms_lock.sleep(5);
end loop;
end;
/

3. Now run the stored procedure p_sleep_test from SQL*Plus by

SQL>exec p_sleep_test;

4. From another session to your oracle database run a query to see that 1 record is inserted every 5 seconds. In the program above it will look for 10 times

SQL>select run_cnt, to_char(date_time,’dd-mon-yyyy hh24:mi:ss’) from   t_sleep_test;

So the above process shows how you can put delays/sleep in your program. I have put execute immediate to get a fresh set of data every time it runs to make testing more enjoyable

.

Read solutions using other Oracle Built-ins in this BLOG:

DBMS_SCHEDULER: Learn with Example

UTL_FILE – Writing to an O/S File

UTL_FILE – Reading an O/S file

Like DBMS_JOB package, the DBMS_SCHEDULER is a collection of functions and procedures intended to make job scheduling in Oracle more robust and easy to use.

PRIVILEGES:
===========================

To create and runs job in Oracle database you will need CREATE JOB role. To perform administrative tasks you will need SCHEDULER_ADMIN role.

Depending on the requirement and your installation environment you may like to grant the following privileges:

CREATE ANY JOBS
CREATE EXTERNAL JOBS

CREATING A SCHEDULED JOB:
===========================

The package is supplied to help perform some database tasks such as running a stored procedure or package at some given time and at some given interval.

And example is here below:

dbms_scheduler.create_job( job_name=>’Myschema.Daily_Emp_Report’,
job_type=>’STORED_PROCEDURE’,
job_action=>’Myschema.p_daily_emp_teport’,
number_of_arguments=>0,
start_date=>TRUNC(SYSDATE),         repeat_interval=>’FREQ=WEEKLY;BYDAY=SUN;BYHOUR=07;BYMINUTE=00;  BYSECOND=00′,
end_date=>NULL,
job_class=> ‘DEFAULT_JOB_CLASS’,
enabled=>TRUE,
auto_drop=>FALSE,
comments=>NULL);

In this example I am creating a scheduled Oracle job named Myschema.Daily_Emp_Report. When run, this job will execute a STORED PROCEDURE called p_daily_emp_teport. The stored procedure p_daily_emp_teport resides in a schema called Myschema. The job will run on every week Sunday at 07:00.

Here it should be noted that the stored procedure to be run can be in any schema as long as the owner of the scheduler job has execute privilege to run the stored procedure.

The most interesting part in the above command is the parameter called repeat_interval. This will dictate when and how often this job is needed to run. In the above example of it is very clear we want to run the job only once a week which is on Sunday at 7 AM.

Some example parameter repeat_interval:

1. repeat_interval=>’FREQ=daily;byhour=20;byminute=0;bysecond=0′.
The job will runs daily from Monday to Sunday at 20:00 hours.

2. repeat_interval=>’FREQ=daily;byhour=20;byminute=30;bysecond=0′.
The job will runs daily from Monday to Sunday at 20:30 hours.

3. repeat_interval=>’FREQ=monthly;bymonthday=10,20; byminute=0;bysecond=0;’
The job will on 10th and 20th day of each month.

4. repeat_interval=>’FREQ=yearly;bymonth=JAN,APR,SEP,DEC;BYMONTHDAY=21;
byhour=20;byminute=30;bysecond=0′ The job will run on 21st of months
JAN, APR, SEP and DEC at 20:30 hours.

UPDATING A SCHEDULED JOB
===========================

Sometime you may find yourself in a situation where you would like to change a parameter value of the scheduled job after you have actually created it. The easiest way to do that might be just drop the job and re-create it with the correct parameter values. But I would say that will be a drastic action to take and in some situation (when it is in production environment) it just might not be the appropriate action and your manager might be really feel uneasy in approving such steps, quite rightly.

That’s why Oracle has provided ways to change a parameter value without actualling dropping anything. An example is given below. Here I am changing my job Myschema.Daily_Emp_Report to run a new stored procedure called Myschema.p_monthly_emp_teport instead of running Myschema.p_daily_emp_teport:

DBMS_SCHEDULER.SET_ATTRIBUTE (
name=>’Myschema.Daily_Emp_Report’,
attribute=>’job_action’,
value=>’Myschema.p_monthly_emp_teport’);

STOPPING A SCHEDULED JOB
===========================

If you need just to stop a scheduler job you can do so my executing the package

DBMS_SCHEDULER.STOP_JOB (
job_name IN VARCHAR2
force IN BOOLEAN DEFAULT FALSE
commit_semantics IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT ‘STOP_ON_FIRST_ERROR’);

where
job_name -> is the name of your job to be stopped
force -> is either TRUE (terminate immediately) or FALSE (stops the job gracefully)
commit_semantics -> accepted value STOP_ON_FIRST_ERROR or ABSORB_ERRORS

Example: DBMS_SCHEDULER.STOP_JOB(job_name=>’Myschema.Daily_Emp_Report’,
force=>’TRUE’,  commit_semantics=>’ABSORB_ERRORS’):

The preceding command will stop the job Myschema.Daily_Emp_Report immediately and will try to absorbs error and commit all stop operations that were successful.

DROPPING A SCHEDULER JOB
===============================

The command to drop a scheduler job is

exec dbms_scheduler.drop_job(‘myjobname’);

USEFUL DATA DICTIONARY OBJECTS
========================================

DBA_SCHEDULER_PROGRAMS
DBA_SCHEDULER_JOBS
DBA_SCHEDULER_JOB_ROLES
DBA_SCHEDULER_JOB_CLASSES
DBA_SCHEDULER_WINDOWS
DBA_SCHEDULER_PROGRAM_ARGS
DBA_SCHEDULER_JOB_ARGS
DBA_SCHEDULER_JOB_RUN_DETAILS
DBA_SCHEDULER_JOB_LOG
DBA_SCHEDULER_WINDOW_LOG
DBA_SCHEDULER_WINDOW_DETAILS
DBA_SCHEDULER_WINDOW_GROUPS
DBA_SCHEDULER_WINGROUP_MEMBERS
DBA_SCHEDULER_WINGROUP_MEMBERS
DBA_SCHEDULER_SCHEDULES
DBA_SCHEDULER_RUNNING_JOBS
DBA_SCHEDULER_REMOTE_DATABASES
DBA_SCHEDULER_REMOTE_JOBSTATE
DBA_SCHEDULER_GLOBAL_ATTRIBUTE
DBA_SCHEDULER_CHAINS
DBA_SCHEDULER_CHAIN_RULES
DBA_SCHEDULER_CHAIN_STEPS
DBA_SCHEDULER_RUNNING_CHAINS
DBA_SCHEDULER_CREDENTIALS

So if you are thinking of reading and processing data fro man operating system file or writing
to a file to generate a report or something like that then you will definitely need to use this
handy Oracle supplied package.

ACCESSING OPERATING SYSTEM FILE STRUCTURE
=========================================

To access an operating system directory structure for read/write the directory need to be defined first.
In earlier versions of Oracle (i.e. Oracle 8.0.4) the init.ora parameter UTL_FILE_DIR is used define
the directories to be used in UTL_FILE. While using that parameter it is necessary to re-start Oracle
database so that your Oracle instance understands this parameter.
The parameter is defined as:
UTL_FILE_DIR=’/home/oracle/dave/’ — for single directory
or
UTL_FILE_DIR=’/home/oracle/dave/’, ‘/home/oracle/tom/’, ‘/home/oracle/jim/’ –for multiple directories

Or a command line facility is also available such as

alter system set utl_file_dir=’/home/oracle/dave/’ scope=spfile

However later versions of Oracle introduced CREATE DIRECTORY command where you can simply create a
directory and use it in UTL_FILE. For example to create such a directory run command which will look
like:

CREATE OR REPLACE DIRECTORY DIR_MYTEMP AS ‘/home/oracle/Dave/’;

Note: To be able to create a directory you will need CREATE ANY DIRECTORY privilege.

Then you can use the DIR_MYTEMP directory in your code with UTL_FILE:

WRITE TO A FILE USING UTL_FILE
==============================

Here is an example of how to write to an operating system file
using a stored procedure written in PL/SQL:
create or replace procedure p_write
is

cursor c_cur1 is
select param_name, param_value
from t_parameters;

l_file utl_file.file_type;
l_dir varchar2(50) := ‘DIR_MYTEMP’;
l_name varchar2(20) := ‘mydatafile.txt’;

begin

l_file := utl_file.fopen( l_dir, l_name, ‘W’);

for cur_rec in c_cur1 loop
utl_file.put_line(l_file, cur_rec.param_name||’,'||cur_rec.param_value);
end loop;

utl_file.fclose(l_file);

exception
WHEN UTL_FILE.INVALID_PATH THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (‘invalid_path’); RAISE;

WHEN UTL_FILE.INVALID_MODE THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (‘invalid_mode’); RAISE;

WHEN UTL_FILE.INVALID_FILEHANDLE THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (‘invalid_filehandle’); RAISE;

WHEN UTL_FILE.INVALID_OPERATION THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (‘invalid_operation’); RAISE;

WHEN UTL_FILE.READ_ERROR THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (‘read_error’); RAISE;

WHEN UTL_FILE.WRITE_ERROR THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (‘write_error’); RAISE;

WHEN UTL_FILE.INTERNAL_ERROR THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (‘internal_error’); RAISE;

end p_write;
/

Executing the procedure will create a file named mydatafile.txt in
directory /home/oracle/Dave/

This package is supplied by Oracle and is used to read an operating system file or write to
an operating system file.

So if you are thinking of reading and processing data fro man operating system file or writing
to a file to generate a report or something like that then you will definitely need to use this
handy Oracle supplied package.

ACCESSING OPERATING SYSTEM FILE STRUCTURE
=========================================

To access an operating system directory structure for read/write the directory need to be defined first.
In earlier versions of Oracle (i.e. Oracle 8.0.4) the init.ora parameter UTL_FILE_DIR is used define
the directories to be used in UTL_FILE. While using that parameter it is necessary to re-start Oracle
database so that your Oracle instance understands this parameter.

The parameter is defined as:

UTL_FILE_DIR=’/home/oracle/dave/’  — for single directory
or
UTL_FILE_DIR=’/home/oracle/dave/’, ‘/home/oracle/tom/’, ‘/home/oracle/jim/’ –for multiple directories

Or a command line facility is also available such as

alter system set utl_file_dir=’/home/oracle/dave/’ scope=spfile
However later versions of Oracle introduced CREATE DIRECTORY command where you can simply create a
directory and use it in UTL_FILE. For example to create such a directory run command which will look
like:

CREATE OR REPLACE DIRECTORY DIR_MYTEMP AS ‘/home/oracle/Dave/’;

Note: To be able to create a directory you will need CREATE ANY DIRECTORY privilege.

Then you can use the DIR_MYTEMP directory in your code with UTL_FILE:

READING FROM AN OPERATING SYSTEM FILE USING UTL_FILE
====================================================
Points to note for the example:

1. DIR_MYTEMP is the directory where my files is located.
2. mydatafile.txt is the filename in directory DIR_MYTEMP.
The contect of the file is:

Param1,100,Cat1
Parameter1,100,Cat2
Paramw1,100,Cat3
Parameeeeeee1,100,Cat4
Paramee1,100,Cat5
Param1,100,Cat6
Here is an example of how to read from an operating system file
using a stored procedure written in PL/SQL:
create or replace procedure p_read
is
input_file      utl_file.file_type;
input_buffer    varchar2(1000);
l_dir           varchar2(50) := ‘DIR_MYTEMP’;
l_name          varchar2(20) := ‘mydatafile.txt’;
l_param_name    varchar2(50);
l_param_val     varchar2(10);
l_param_cat     varchar2(10);

begin
begin
input_file := utl_file.fopen( l_dir, l_name, ‘R’);

EXCEPTION WHEN OTHERS THEN
dbms_output.put_line(‘Error in opening FILE’);
END;
BEGIN
LOOP
utl_file.get_line (input_file, input_buffer);
IF input_buffer IS NULL THEN
EXIT;
END IF;

l_param_name := substr(input_buffer,1, instr(input_buffer,’,',1, 1)-1);
l_param_val  := substr(input_buffer,instr(input_buffer,’,',1, 1)+1,
instr(input_buffer,’,',1, 2)-instr(input_buffer,’,',1, 1)-1);

l_param_cat  := substr(input_buffer,instr(input_buffer,’,',1, 2 )+1);

dbms_output.put_line(l_param_name||’-'||l_param_val||’-'||l_param_cat);

END LOOP;
EXCEPTION
WHEN NO_DATA_FOUND THEN
dbms_output.put_line(‘END OF FILE’);
END;

utl_file.fclose(input_file);

exception
WHEN UTL_FILE.INVALID_PATH THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (‘invalid_path’); RAISE;

WHEN UTL_FILE.INVALID_MODE THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (‘invalid_mode’); RAISE;

WHEN UTL_FILE.INVALID_FILEHANDLE THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (‘invalid_filehandle’); RAISE;

WHEN UTL_FILE.INVALID_OPERATION THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (‘invalid_operation’); RAISE;

WHEN UTL_FILE.READ_ERROR THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (‘read_error’); RAISE;

WHEN UTL_FILE.WRITE_ERROR THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (‘write_error’); RAISE;

WHEN UTL_FILE.INTERNAL_ERROR THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (‘internal_error’); RAISE;

end p_read;
/
Executing the stored procedure will give the output as:

Param1-100-Cat1
Parameter1-100-Cat2
Paramw1-100-Cat3
Parameeeeeee1-100-Cat4
Paramee1-100-Cat5
Param1-100-Cat6
END OF FILE