Oracle Built-in Packages

Chapter 5. Oracle Advanced Queuing

Oracle8 offers a facility (new to Oracle 8) called Oracle AQ (Oracle Advanced Queuing, referred to as AQ in this chapter) that will make it much easier for developers to build applications that require deferred execution of activity. Oracle is positioning Oracle AQ as an alternative to the queuing mechanisms of teleprocessing monitors and messaging interfaces. Oracle AQ will serve as a foundation technology for workflow management applications, both those delivered by Oracle Corporation itself and those implemented by third parties.

From a PL/SQL standpoint, Oracle AQ is made available through two packages: DBMS_AQADM and DBMS_AQ. The DBMS_AQADM package is the interface to the administrative tasks of Oracle AQ. These tasks include:

• Creating or dropping queue tables that contain one or more queues

• Creating, dropping, and altering queues, which are stored in a queue table

• Starting and stopping queues in accepting message creation or consumption

Most users of the Oracle AQ facility will not work with DBMS_AQADM. The DBA will most likely initialize all needed queue tables and queues. PL/SQL developers will instead work with the DBMS_AQ, whose tasks include:

• Creating a message to the specified queue

• Consuming a message from the specified queue

Most of the background information presented early in this chapter applies to both packages. Later, we’ll provide individual discussions of the two packages and their programs.

Oracle AQ is full of features and offers ...