The worst thing about being the most technically competent person in a company is that all too often, the buck stops at my desk.  I can’t complain – it’s a problem of my own making; I’m too lazy to pass on knowledge in a usable format, so I end up having to do a lot of the work.

One of my regular tasks is sorting out the database on our Support server.  This is a bit of a nightmare, since the users of that server are all – at least in their own minds – admin types, so configurations and usage changes on a daily basis.

Today – we ran out of space.  This isn’t as bad as it sounds, since I’ve put a restriction in place to limit any database file to 8GB (this is a limit enforced by my rather lame backup practices).  I knew the problem – one of our support databases was on the “USERS” tablespace, instead of the appropriate customer-specific tablespace.

Thanks to the guys at DBA Sensation, finding the correct commands to move Tables, Indexes and even LOB Segments to a new tablespace was trivial… But here’s a very useful script that generates a full set of commands to move all of a given user’s data from one tablespace to another…

SELECT CASE
     WHEN segment_type = 'TABLE' THEN
          'ALTER TABLE '||seg.owner||'.'||seg.segment_name ||' MOVE TABLESPACE '||'&TARGET_TBSP'||';'
     WHEN segment_type = 'INDEX' THEN
          'ALTER INDEX '||seg.owner||'.'||seg.segment_name ||' REBUILD TABLESPACE '||'&TARGET_TBSP'||';'
     WHEN segment_type = 'LOBINDEX' THEN
          'ALTER TABLE '||seg.owner||'.'||lob.table_name ||' MOVE LOB('||lob.column_name||') ' ||'STORE AS (TABLESPACE '||'&TARGET_TBSP'||');'
     ELSE '/* Segment '||seg.segment_name ||' is of type: '||segment_type||' */'
     END AS sql_command
FROM dba_segments seg, dba_lobs lob
WHERE seg.owner = '&SOURCE_OWNER'
     AND seg.tablespace_name = '&SOURCE_TBSP'
     AND seg.owner = lob.owner(+)
     AND seg.segment_name = lob.index_name (+)
GROUP BY seg.owner, seg.segment_name, 
     seg.segment_type, seg.tablespace_name, 
     lob.table_name, lob.column_name
ORDER BY seg.segment_type DESC, seg.segment_name;

A word of warning: This will work for all tables, indexes and LOB segments, but will not handle any tables that have a LONG datatype. OraFAQ has a helpful thread about this – the simple answer is that LONG datatypes don’t support the MOVE command.

Tom Kyte is a world renowned Oracle expert – just look through his “Ask Tom” site for confirmation (half the questions seem to come from India). Despite his fame, I once changed his mind on an interesting topic – the best substitute for a Boolean data-type in Oracle -Ask Tom “Boolean Datatype”.  Okay, so it was a moment of crowning glory for me – but hey, I’m a geek – recognition from a famous geek (even fleeting) is worth a lot to me!

This particular page though brings to mind a huge rant – pointless questions, and trolls.

If you read through the linked page from the top, there’s a recurring theme of “Why doesn’t Oracle have this feature – it should, because I want it!”  Reading between the lines, I’m sure that all the people asking this question know full well two facts:

1. Tom can’t add the feature to Oracle
2. There’s 101 different work-arounds available, that all offer the functionality that is require

So, the truth is, these people just want to have the satisfaction of trying to get the famous Tom Kyte to admit that Oracle isn’t perfect.  Which is true – but Tom will never admit it.

Now, this isn’t just about the “Ask Tom” website.  The truth of the matter is that this is a hugely prevalent attitude of “This is how it should be” and “This is how it used to be” that’s based on no evidence that the other way is by any measure better – except, of course, the fact that that’s the way it used to be.

A personal example, first… Back at the beginning of the year, the marketing department decided that our slightly ramshackle office wasn’t “pretty” enough for display to customers, and reorganised.  For at least two weeks, I hated the new layout – saw all kinds of problems – until I got used to it enough that I didn’t care that it was all different, at which point I realised that it was far better, and I did quite like it.

It’s the same with a lot of people, I think.  We all have a tendency to reject change out of hand – at least at first – just because it is different.  Whether it’s the “New Recipe” cola, or being forced to change to a new school, or a new version of Microsoft Office – we all hate being forced to change.

The most entertaining thing about it all is the fact that changes we control – new cars, new houses, all kinds of new toys – always get an extra shiny veneer while they’re still new.  We love new things that we’ve chosen to have – even if it turns out they’re not actually better than the old one.

There’s probably a moral about that… but I can’t quite figure it out right now!