Keyword Search on all tables of a Schema

Question

Hi,
My application incorporates a keyword search facility i.e. it should search all tables for that particular keyword and return matched strings. This should be implemented by dynamic queries from a procedure.
Can anyone suggest me an efficient algorithm for the same?
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

A query like the one you wish to build may have nasty side effects in Oracle. I can post a quick suggestion... but I'm aware that it may pollute the SGA somewhat and thus cause some performance issues for the system. Consider it a starting point, ok?
PROMPT create result table
CREATE GLOBAL TEMPORARY TABLE keyword_search_result_gt
(tname varchar2(30)
,cname varchar2(30)
,text  varchar2(4000)
) ON COMMIT PRESERVE ROWS
PROMPT create search procedure
CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE wild_keyword_search( p_keyword IN VARCHAR2 )
IS
CURSOR c1 IS
SELECT /*+cache */
  table_name
,column_name
FROM
  user_tab_columns
WHERE
  data_type = 'VARCHAR2'
ORDER BY 1;
BEGIN
FOR x IN c1 LOOP
  EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'INSERT INTO keyword_search_result_gt SELECT '''||x.TABLE_NAME||''', '''||x.COLUMN_NAME||''', '||x.COLUMN_NAME||' FROM '||x.TABLE_NAME||' WHERE '||x.COLUMN_NAME||' LIKE '''||'%'||p_keyword||'%'||'''';
END LOOP;
END;
PROMPT cleanup
DELETE keyword_search_result_gt
PROMPT run a test searching for keyword 'TEXTABC'
exec wild_keyword_search ('TEXTABC')
PROMPT query output
SELECT * FROM keyword_search_result_gt
/<br>
<br>
It this an ok answer? Or do you consider it crap to be swapped with a scalable solution?