Re: JVM in the database

Hi.

I suspect a lot of this comes down to one of the following:

• The functionality didn't exist outside of Java at the time the solution was first required, and people have stuck with it.
• The Java version was faster at the time, for the specific use case.
• Familiarity. Someone can find an easy example in Java, so they just go with it.
• PL/SQL feels static, when the world is moving.

When I first started using Java Stored Procedures for BLOB exports there was no alternative. The file handling stuff I wrote in Java was because UTL_FILE couldn't do it. Even when more functionality was added, there are still things that are a pain in PL/SQL, like listing the files in directories. I know these can be done with the scheduler or external tables, but it's a pain compared to using Java. Running OS commands from PL/SQL was another use case. You can now used the scheduler, but for a long time you couldn't, and I would still say they are more painful.

In one job we used UUIDs for the primary key in a bunch of tables. The Java UUID generator was faster than SYS_GUID() at the time. Not sure if that is still the case. We had some other maths stuff that was faster in Java, but natively compiled PL/SQL was comparable, so we went that route.

Cheers

Tim...

--
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l