Advanced Oracle PL/SQL Programming with Packages

16.3. Modifying PLVgen Behavior

The PLVgen package is a tool to improve the quality of life of developers. It can be used directly in an environment like SQL*Plus. It can also be utilized from within a GUI interface to make it easier to select options and combine different code fragments. Given the wide variety of circumstances under which PLVgen could be used, and the variety of coding styles used by developers, I face a big challenge in implementing PLVgen: make it flexible!

I cannot, for example, force anyone to use my PLVexc package to handle exceptions. An application team might not want to use the PLVtrc package to build in an execution trace. If I don't give users of PLVgen the option to use and ignore these different elements, I will not have very many users of the package. Consequently, I supply a variety of get-and-set programs in PLVgen to toggle various aspects of generate behavior. I even used early versions of PLVgen to generate get-and-set programs for the PLVgen package itself!

PLVgen offers a set of toggles to turn on or off the inclusion of various elements of code. It also provides a set of programs to modify the appearance of output, particularly as regards indentation. These programs are listed in Table 16.1 and are explained in the following sections.

Table 16.1. Programs to Modify PLVgen Behavior and Output

Behavior	Programs	Description
Set author	set_author author	Sets and retrieves the current string used as the author in a program header. The default is ...