ANT - PLSQL execution error

Question

I have a bunch of sql scripts (some sql and some plsql) to be executed using ant . Before I start the execution, I need to make sure that the files are executable. So I run the following target to create sql and plsql executable from ant.

    <copy todir="${migration.scripts.dir}\temp\">
      <fileset dir="${migration.scripts.dir}" includes="*.sql"/>
      <filterchain>
        <replaceregex byline="false" pattern=";" replace="${line.separator}/" flags="mg"/>
        <replaceregex byline="false" pattern="/[\s]*/" replace=";${line.separator}/"  flags="mg"/>
       </filterchain>
    </copy>

And the PLSQL in the file a file is something like this -

   BEGIN 
     FOR c IN 
     --query
     LOOP 
       dbms_utility.blah ; 
     END LOOP; 
     COMMIT;
    END;
    /

that when ant target makeExecutableSQLs runs outputs -

BEGIN 
 FOR c IN 
 --query 
 LOOP 
   dbms_utility.blah 
/ 
 END LOOP
/ 
 COMMIT
/
END
;
/

but this when running later fails due to this error -

Error starting at line : 1 in command - BEGIN FOR c IN --query LOOP dbms_utility.blah Error report - ORA-06550: line 9, column 135: PLS-00103: Encountered the symbol "end-of-file" when expecting one of the following:

  := . ( % ; 06550. 00000 - "line %s, column %s:\\n%s" *Cause: Usually a PL/SQL compilation error. *Action: Error starting at line : 11 in command - END LOOP Error report - Unknown Command Commit complete. Error starting at line : 15 in command - END Error report - Unknown Command Error starting at line : 16 in command - Error report - Unknown Command 

Cant put a finger on where the error is?

Answer 1

The PL/SQL errors are thrown because you have replaced semicolon PL/SQL statement separators with block terminators.

When the compiler sees the / it terminates and executes the command in the buffer, so it sees and tries to compile and run

BEGIN 
 FOR c IN 
 --query 
 LOOP 
   dbms_utility.blah 
/ 

as a standalone complete PL/SQL block. As the error you get from that

ORA-06550: line 9, column 135: PLS-00103: Encountered the symbol "end-of-file" ...

indicates that apparently-complete block ends before it is supposed to. There is no semicolon statement terminator after blah , but also no end loop or end for the block - in that code it is trying to execute. It hasn't seen the rest of the script, effectively.

It then carries on and tries to interpret the next chunk

 END LOOP
/ 

which is also invalid; the client doesn't even try to execute that because it doesn't know what to do with it.

Then the next chunk

 COMMIT
/

is successfully run as a plain SQL (transaction control) statement, not in a PL/SQL context.

And so on.

In short, you cannot replace semicolons with slashes within a PL/SQL block as they do very different things. In plain SQL they are interchangeable (or rather, to most clients they are; at least by default - even in SQL*Plus you can change the SQL terminator from a semicolon to something else).

The client still handles the slash after a PL/SQL block, and when it sees that it sends the block to the DB to be executed. But while it knows it is inside a block it knows any semicolons it sees are part of the PL/SQL language and it shouldn't try to interpret them.

This is referred to in the SQL*Plus documentation for running PL/SQL blocks , and other clients tend to behave in similar ways.

Execute the current subprogram with a RUN or slash ( / ) command. A semicolon ( ; ) is treated as part of the PL/SQL subprogram and will not execute the command.