Maximum Open cursor Exceeded error when deleting records from a table

Question

I have a strange problem.
I have a table EMP_MASTER . Whenever I am trying to delete a record from this table, I am getting Maximum no. of open cursor exceeded error. But this error doesnot come when i delete from any other tables. And no. of open cursor is much lesser than OPEN_CURSOR parameter.
All other tables (around 700) has foreign key constraint to this EMP_MASTER table for created_user paramater.
Is it some thing like, when I am trying to delete a record from EMP_master, implicit cursor opens up and checks all referenced tables. and that limit gets exceeded ?
Please help.
Thanks,
Raj

Answer 1

Raji03 wrote:
There is no trigger defined for this table.
Is there a limit on which no.of references made to a column ? Because one column in this field, Emp no is being referenced in almost every other table. around 700 tables. Will it have any adverse effect ?That should have nothing to do with your problem directly. Again, those tables could have triggers defined on them and you are leaking cursors in one of those triggers (wild guess).
An example of a table with many many others foreign key'd to it.
create table parent_of_everything
   column1 number primary key
insert into parent_of_everything select level from dual connect by level <= 1000;
commit;
--create 1000 tables all with foreign keys to the parent_of_everything
begin
   for i in 1 .. 1000
   loop
      execute immediate 'create table child_' || i || ' (column1 number, column2 number, constraint child_' || i || '_fk foreign key (column1) references parent_of_everything (column1) on delete cascade)';
      execute immediate 'insert into child_' || i || ' select level, mod(level, ' || i || ') from dual connect by level <= 1000';
      commit;
   end loop;
end;
TUBBY_TUBBZ?delete parent_of_everything;
1000 rows deleted.
Elapsed: 00:02:53.03No problems were had (none were expected).
Cleanup script.
--remove the 1000 child tables
begin
   for i in 1 .. 1000
   loop
      begin
         execute immediate 'drop table child_' || i || ' purge';
      exception when others
         then
            null;
      end;
   end loop;
end;
/