A BUG in the KPRB JDBC driver

Question

Hi community,
the problem I would like to present here seems to be a BUG in the KPRB (server-side) JDBC driver. To be precise, I am going to outline the platform I found the problem occurs (I haven't made any tests with the others yet). These are Oracle 8.1.6-8.1.7.4 databases.
What I am trying to do is to write a Java Stored Procedure and return a nested table from it. Nothing easier than that!? The important aspect is I cannot (shouldn't) hardcode schema name in the call to the oracle.sql.ArrayDescriptor.createDescriptor() method since the Stored Procedure and the accompanied nested table (SQL) type can be loaded into arbitrary schema. Thus, my code looks like:
Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:default:connection:");
ArrayDescriptor arrDesc = ArrayDescriptor.createDescriptor("NESTED_TABLE_TYPE_NAME",con);
You can note, NESTED_TABLE_TYPE_NAME is the nested table type I create in the same schema the Stored Procedure is loaded. What wrong with it? Actually, it works perfectly fine if You call the Stored Procedure being logged as the owner of the Procedure. The problem occurs if You grant the execute rights to other users and try to call it being logged as one of them. What happens is Oracle doesn't find the nested table type and throws an exception.
Does it mean such behavior implies a BUG? Oracle reference states that if either the PL/SQL wrapper for the Java Stored Procedure or the class itself are marked as having DEFINER privileges the call proceeds in the schema of the definer, not the caller. Actually, I tried to declare the PL/SQL wrapper as well as the class having DEFINER privileges and none of them succeded.
Then I made some investigations, and found in the Thin JDBC driver the ArrayDescriptor.createDescriptor method uses the oracle.sql.SQLName class, which in turn calls the oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleConnection.getUserName() method to obtain the missing schema name, and the latter performs select:
SELECT USER FROM DUAL
Obviously, the above returns current user, and not the current schema in the case DEFINER privileges were applied. I understand, the Thin JDBC driver is different from the KPRB driver but!!! I also monitor Library Cache (through v$sql dynamical view) while calling the Stored Procedure and what I see is very interesting ;-) The number of executions for the "SELECT USER FROM DUAL" statement increases!!!
That is why I claim the above behavior is a BUG of the KPRB driver.
Regards,
Roman Zahorbenski

Answer 1

Hi Avi,
Because you didn't grant access permission to other users on the NESTED_TABLE_TYPE_NAME (maybe?)Of course, I remember to grant (EXECUTE) privilege on the nested table type to other users. The reason are not synonyms also, for Oracle doesn't allow to access these types through synonyms, unfortunately.
And the applications can be tons ;-), I use it to implement regular expression functionality in the databases prior to 9i.
Regards,
Roman