12c - Silly little trick with invisibility...

Posted by noreply(at)blogger.com (Thomas Kyte) on Oracle Blogs See other posts from Oracle Blogs or by noreply(at)blogger.com (Thomas Kyte)
Published on Tue, 2 Jul 2013 18:03:37 +0000 Indexed on 2013/07/02 23:12 UTC
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This is interesting, if you hide and then unhide a column - it will end up at the "end" of the table.  Consider:

ops$tkyte%ORA12CR1> create table t ( a int, b int, c int );
Table created.

ops$tkyte%ORA12CR1>
ops$tkyte%ORA12CR1> desc t;
 Name                                                  Null?    Type
 ----------------------------------------------------- -------- ------------------------------------
 A                                                              NUMBER(38)
 B                                                              NUMBER(38)
 C                                                              NUMBER(38)

ops$tkyte%ORA12CR1> alter table t modify (a invisible);
Table altered.

ops$tkyte%ORA12CR1> alter table t modify (a visible);
Table altered.

ops$tkyte%ORA12CR1> desc t;
 Name                                                  Null?    Type
 ----------------------------------------------------- -------- ------------------------------------
 B                                                              NUMBER(38)
 C                                                              NUMBER(38)
 A                                                              NUMBER(38)


Now, that means you can add a column or shuffle them around.  What if we had just added A to the table and really really wanted A to be first.  My first approach would be "that is what editioning views are great at".  If I couldn't use an editioning view for whatever reason - we could shuffle the columns:

ops$tkyte%ORA12CR1> alter table t modify (b invisible);
Table altered.

ops$tkyte%ORA12CR1> alter table t modify (c invisible);
Table altered.

ops$tkyte%ORA12CR1> alter table t modify (b visible);
Table altered.

ops$tkyte%ORA12CR1> alter table t modify (c visible);
Table altered.

ops$tkyte%ORA12CR1>
ops$tkyte%ORA12CR1> desc t;
 Name                                                  Null?    Type
 ----------------------------------------------------- -------- ------------------------------------
 A                                                              NUMBER(38)
 B                                                              NUMBER(38)
 C                                                              NUMBER(38)


Note: that could cause some serious invalidations in your database - so make sure you are a) aware of that b) willing to pay that penalty and c) really really really want A to be first in the table!

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