Query Results: Retrieve All Rows?

Question

I was looking for a feature that will allow me to choose to return "all records" to the Query Results window. The current behavior is to fetch 50 records at a time (e.g. fetch 50 records as you scroll through the results = s-l-o-w). What I'd like to do is "Retrieve All Rows" then use to the scroll bar to "smoothly" scroll to the last record. For example, the 8.0.6 version of Query Builder had this functionality and in SQL Developer 3.0, if I right-click on the results. I can choose to "Count Rows...", seems like this would be a perfect place to put a "Retrieve All Rows" option.

Answer 1

Hi,
My advice: do something only if there is a business case for it; satisfying your curiosity can get surprisingly expensive.
You have already read about using Run Statement to execute a SQL statement, then Ctrl-End to auto-scroll to the end. You can try the same for Run Script, but first you will probably need to increase the value of Tools|Preferences|Database|Worksheet|Max rows to print in a script. Of course, taking either of these approaches slows things down due to displaying output and scrolling. Same with SQL*Plus. And, as mentioned previously, Java memory management in SQL Developer can cause slow downs and hangs if the result set is large enough.
Here is a way to minimize that delay, avoid hangs, and get a more repeatable result:
1) Save some query to, say, C:\Temp\AllCustomers.sql. For example, "select * from customers;" or "select id from customers;".
2) Run it from a SQL Developer worksheet using Run Script (F5), or from the SQL*Plus command line, with a script like this:
set timing on
set termout off
spool C:\Temp\AllCustomers.lst
@C:\Temp\AllCustomers.sql
spool offEven then you will see that the timing results will vary. Maybe "select *" runs much slower than "select id" because the logical output lines are long and get wrapped into multiple physical output lines in the file. Minimize that by setting linesize to a longer value (but only in SQL*Plus -- it isn't supported in SQL Developer) and repeat the test to see. Maybe SQL*Plus runs it much faster than SQL Developer because one is a command line environment and the other a GUI tool with more overhead. Or maybe the SQL Developer JVM is near its size limit and lots of Java garbage collection is slowing it down. Simple question, complicated answer.
Regards,
Gary
SQL Developer Team
P.S.: And if by chance you are using a version of SQL Developer so old it does not include the output time in the query result tab's toolbar, using Run Script with set timing on is your only recourse.
Edited by: gggraham on Oct 27, 2011 4:54 PM