Finding the right line when Oracle says an error happens at a line number.

Question

Hi,
Were using Oracle 11.1.
I use TOAD 10 to develop.
When I run a procedure sometimes I'll get an error message saying "an Oracle error happened at ### line number"
When I go to that line number, that's usually not where the error is.
I'm not talking about an error where they say it occurs at line 1.
It'll say line 124 and in the TOAD editor that will occur in the middle of a cursor or something.
I'm pretty sure that's not where the error actually is.
Is there any way to find out where Oracle is talking about?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi,
In triggers, the first DECLARE or BEGIN statment is counted as line 1, even though there are often several lines before that.
In other procedures, the line numbers are relative to the beginning of the relevant CREATE statement, e.g. "CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE BODY ...".
Where these statements are in your files has nothing to do with the error messages. For example, if you have a package spec that goes on for 50 lines, then 10 lines of comments, and then a package body, all in the same file, then the line numbers that you see for the pacakage body will be 60 lower than the line numbers from your file. (You may want to use separate files, each starting with a CREATE command on the fitst line, for just this reason.)
Oracle often gives multiple error messages for the same error. For example, if a cursor definition begins on line 50, and you mis-spell a column name on line 55, you may get a message saying "statement ignored" referencing line 50, but you'll probably get another (more useful) error referenccing the particular problem on line 55.
Of course, some errors can't be detected right away. For example, if you forget a single-quote at the end of a string literal, the compiler will think that all your subsequent code is part of that string literal. Not unitl it encounters another single-quote, perhaps at the beginning of another string literal, dozens of lines later, will it know that any error occurred.
Those are the main pitfalls I know about.
If you have an example of something that confuses you, post it. Shorten the code as much as possible such that it's easier to post, but still gets the same error. Post the complete error message, too.