Granting read only access

Question

Is there a way to grant read only access to all tables in a schema, rather than doing it for each individual table in the schema?

Answer 1

I have a package that does something just like this, here is a snippit. It uses dynamic SQL to build the GRANT statements. I'm not sure if this is a 'best practice', but it works for me.
      --Find the tables to GRANT SELECT privileges on
      string_query := 'SELECT DISTINCT ''' || LOWER(schema_name) || '.''|| ' || 'table_name FROM all_tables WHERE UPPER(owner) LIKE ''%' || UPPER(schema_name) || '%''';
      OPEN c FOR string_query;
         LOOP
            FETCH c INTO table_name;
         EXIT WHEN c%NOTFOUND;
            --Build the GRANT string
            string_grant := 'GRANT SELECT ON ' || LOWER(table_name) || ' TO ' || UPPER(role_name);
            --GRANT privilege
            EXECUTE IMMEDIATE string_grant;
         END LOOP;
      CLOSE c;