Enhancement Request: Show more info about LOBs and LONGs in result grid already

[Bernhard S]

Currently when you select a table with LOBs or LONG columns you can only see in the result grid entries like:
or and you get all the details only when you open the "Large Data Editor" (LDE). Even if the field is empty it's not shown any differently in the grid. You only find out that it's empy when you open it via LDE.
I would like to avoid being forced to use LDE in some of those cases by showing more details already in the grid:

- The info about the LOBs or LONGs datatype doesn't need to be shown in every row again, it's sufficient to show this info in the header.

- Empty LOBs or LONGs should be shown as empty in grid marked as other NULL columns, as defined in PSD: "Preferences" - "SQL Window" - "Null value cell color"

- For non-empty CLOBs or LONGS I'd like to see the beginning of the text in the grid cell and an indicator that what is shown is incomplete. When the column is widenened, more text should be shown in the grid.

 

[Theod]

Hi,

for a clob I use

select
to_char(substr(lob_column,1,4000)) lob_column_short
,lob_column Ausgabe
...

So I'v both an easy view at data, and the possibility to examinate the whole clob.

 

[Bernhard S]

Hi Theod,
this is a nice workaround, but it would be a whole lot easier if PL/SQL Developer did this internally already without having to adapt queries. For LONGs no such simple workaround exists at all.

 

[Theod]

Hi Bernhard,

yap, I agree, so an LOB or LONG should have both, showing the first chars/bits and an button to examine the whole column.

 

[Worker]

I use TO_CHAR(clob_column) because it's faster. Selecting CLOB columns directly is frustratingly slow if you have to do the query more than once. And then having to click to see the CLOB content is just salt in the wound.