How to Find a Specific Value Across All Tables and Columns in an Oracle Database?

Search for specific values ​​in any table and column in Oracle database

You need to find a specific value in a large number of tables and fields in an Oracle database. Although you have limited knowledge of the origin of the data, the value "1/22/2008P09RR8" remains unchanged.

Find candidate columns

Although your initial query attempted to identify candidate columns based on the expected naming pattern "%DTN%", this was not successful. Instead, the following query provides a more accurate search:

<code class="language-sql">SELECT owner, table_name, column_name
FROM all_tab_columns
WHERE column_name LIKE '%DTN%';</code>

However, if "DTN" is just a speculation, this approach may not produce the expected results.

Search all columns

Assuming that the value is indeed stored in a column, you can systematically search every column in each table using:

Method 1: Dynamic SQL

Using PL/SQL and Dynamic SQL, you can generate and execute SQL queries at runtime. The following code snippet achieves this:

<code class="language-sql">SET SERVEROUTPUT ON SIZE 100000

DECLARE
  match_count INTEGER;
BEGIN
  FOR t IN (SELECT owner, table_name, column_name
                  FROM all_tab_columns
                  WHERE owner != 'SYS' and data_type LIKE '%CHAR%') LOOP

    EXECUTE IMMEDIATE
      'SELECT COUNT(*) FROM ' || t.owner || '.' || t.table_name ||
      ' WHERE '||t.column_name||' = :1'
      INTO match_count
      USING '1/22/2008P09RR8';

    IF match_count > 0 THEN
      dbms_output.put_line( t.table_name ||' '||t.column_name||' '||match_count );
    END IF;

  END LOOP;

END;
/</code>

Method 2: Script query

Alternatively, you can generate separate SQL queries for each column in each table. For example, for a table named "table1" the query would look like:

<code class="language-sql">SELECT * FROM table1
  WHERE column1 = 'value'
     OR column2 = 'value'
     OR column3 = 'value'
     ...
     ;</code>

By using these methods, you can carefully search the vast space of Oracle database for the elusive value "1/22/2008P09RR8".

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