Please advise what tools good for debugging PL/SQL:
a) commercial
b) free

I tried some of them but they not to good work with debugging inside
packages.
Any opinions welcome.

"Julia Sats" <julia.sats (AT) sympatico (DOT) ca> wrote

What tool have you tried? Are you wishing to debug mainly on the client or
server side, or both? For example, if you are developing PL/SQL with Forms
Developer, it has a terrific debugger.

Julia Sats wrote:
TOAD (Tools for Oracle Application Developers) from Quest Software. Not
free, but not hideously expensive either. Decent debugger with
breakpoints, watches, call stacks, etc.

Download a free trial at http://www.quest.com/toad/

--
//-Walt
// (not affiliated with Quest, I just use and like TOAD.
//

Here are some tips for free server_side debugging tools:
- If you can live with all your messages appearing only at the end of
your program, DBMS_OUTPUT is useful.
- DBMS_APPLICATION_INFO.SET_MODULE is useful to put some debugging
messages in your code. You can then see where you are by spying on the
columns ACTION and MODULE of V$SESSION.
- DBMS_PROFILER collects some timing statictics on each (executable)
line of code. A useful report is also provided. DBMS_PROFILER has to
be installed (from rdbms/admin subdirectory), as well as the report
(from plsql/demo subdirectory, if I remember well).
- If you want to get even more details, use DBMS_DEBUG. I don't have
any experience with it, but it seems very powerful.

HTH

Daniel

pl/sql developer and toad have generic debuggers. Same as all IDEs.
I believe pl/sql developer is cheaper if cost is an issue. Both debuggers
seem to be about the same. Now Toad offers more administrative features if
you want those.

I dont know any free pl/sql tools that include debuggers. I think they make
you buy the whole thing to get them.
"Julia Sats" <julia.sats (AT) sympatico (DOT) ca> wrote

Oracle9i JDeveloper let you debug PL/SQL code (and also offers a
friendly pl/sql writing environment).
Get it from http://otn.oracle.com/products/jdev

See the PL/SQL tutorial at:
http://otn.oracle.com/products/jdev/..._overview.html