Advanced Oracle PL/SQL Programming with Packages

15.1. Compiling PL/SQL Code in SQL*Plus

Suppose that you work really, really hard at building this very complicated PL/SQL program. It's a big one, but you feel as if you've got a handle on it. You "create or replace" it in SQL*Plus and here is what you see:

SQL> start bigone.sql
Warning: Procedure created with compilation errors.

You groan. At the same time, you realize that you weren't very likely to get it all right the first time. Well, it's time to find out what the error is. Fortunately, Oracle Corporation provides a utility to view the compile errors: the SHOW ERRORS command.

SQL> show errors
LINE/COL ERROR
-------- --------------------------------------------------------------
624/10   PLS-00103: Encountered the symbol "IF" when expecting one of
         the following:
         * & = - + ; < / > in mod not rem an exponent (**)
         <> or != or ~= >= <= <> and or like between is null etc.
         ; was inserted before "IF" to continue.

Wow. Underwhelmed or what? Let's see...so, this error of some kind was found on the tenth character of line 624. Line 624, eh? I open up the file containing my fantastic new program and go down to line 624. Here is what I find:

622  FOR data_rec IN data_cur
623  LOOP
624     restructure (data_rec.key_val);
635  END LOOP;

Not an IF in sight. My sense of elation deflates. Getting this program to compile is going to be more difficult that I had thought. What is going on and why am I so depressed?

The most critical problem is that SHOW ERRORS does not actually show the line of code ...