In yesterday’s post I talked about you could use SQL Developer’s Describe (SHIFT+F4) to open a PL/SQL Package at your cursor.

You might get an error if you try to describe this…

If you actually try to describe the package as you see it in the above screenshot, you’ll get an error:

Doh!

I neglected to say in yesterday’s post that I was highlighting the package name before I hit SHIFT+F4. This works just fine, but it will work even better in our next release as we’ve fixed this issue.

Until then, you can also try the Ctrl+Hover with your mouse. For PL/SQL calls you can open the source immediately based on what you’re hovering over with your mouse cursor.

You could try this with “dbms_output.put_line(” too

Ctrl+Click, It’s not just for PL/SQL

If you don’t like the floating describe windows you get when you do a SHIFT+F4 on a database object, the ctrl+click will work too. Instead of opening a normal ‘hover’ panel, you’ll be taken directly to the object editor for that table, view, etc.

Go ahead and try it right now.

Paste this into your worksheet, then ctrl+click with your mouse over the table name:

select * from
scott.emp

And now you know, the rest of the story.