Version 18.0

2017 01 29 - v18.0

This new major release adds several new useful features and lot of
improvements.

• Automatic rewrite of simple form of (+) outer join Oracle's
  syntax. This major feature makes Ora2Pg become the first free
  tool that is able to rewrite automatically some (+) outer join in
  command line mode. This works with simple form of outer join
  but this is a beginning.
• Add export of Oracle's virtual column using a real column and
  a trigger.
• Allow conversion of RAW/CHAR/VARCHAR2 type with precision in
  DATA_TYPE directive. Useful for example to transform all RAW(32)
  or VARCHAR2(32) columns into PostgreSQL special type uuid.
• Add export NOT VALIDATED state from Oracle foreign keys and check
  constraints into NOT VALID constraints in PostgreSQL.
• Replace call to SYS_GUID() with uuid_generate_v4() by default.
• Add "CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS dblink;" before an autonomous
  transaction or "CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS pg_background;".
• Major rewrite of the way Ora2Pg parse PL/SQL to rewrite function
  calls and other PL/SQL to plpgsql replacement. There should not
  be any limitation in rewriting when a function contains a sub
  query or an other function call inside his parameters.
• Refactoring of ora2pg to not requires any dependency other than
  the Perl DBI module by default. All DBD drivers are now optionals
  and ora2pg will expect an Oracle DDL file as input by default.
• Add export of Oracle's global variables defined in package. They
  are exported as user defined custom variables and available in
  a session. If the variable is a constant or have a default value
  assigned at declaration, ora2pg will create a new file with the
  declaration (global_variables.conf) to be included in the main
  configuration file postgresql.conf file.
• Create full text search configuration when USE_UNACCENT directive
  is enabled using the auto detected stemmer or the one defined in
  FTS_CONFIG. For example:
  CREATE TEXT SEARCH CONFIGURATION fr (COPY = french);
  ALTER TEXT SEARCH CONFIGURATION fr ALTER MAPPING FOR
  hword, hword_part, word WITH unaccent, french_stem;
  CREATE INDEX place_notes_cidx ON places
  USING gin(to_tsvector('fr', place_notes));

Changes and incompatibilities from previous release:

• FTS_INDEX_ONLY is now enabled by default because the addition of
  a column is not always possible and not always necessary where a
  simple function-based index is enough.
• Remove use to setweigth() on single column FTS based indexes.
• Change default behaviour of Ora2Pg in Full Text Search index
  export.

A new command line option and some configuration directive have
been added:

• Option -D | --data_type to allow custom data type replacement
  at command line like in configuration file with DATA_TYPE.
• UUID_FUNCTION to be able to redefined the function called to
  replace SYS_GUID() Oracle function. Default to uuid_generate_v4.
• REWRITE_OUTER_JOIN to be able to disable the rewriting of Oracle
  native syntax (+) into OUTER JOIN if rewritten code is broken.
• USE_UNACCENT and USE_LOWER_UNACCENT configuration directives to
  use the unaccent extension with pg_trgm with the FTS indexes.
• FTS_INDEX_ONLY, by default Ora2Pg creates an extra tsvector column
  with a dedicated triggers for FTS indexes. Enable this directive
  if you just want a function-based index like:
  CREATE INDEX ON t_document USING
  gin(to_tsvector('pg_catalog.english', title));
• FTS_CONFIG, use this directive to force the text search stemmer
  used with the to_tsvector() function. Default is to auto detect
  the Oracle FTS stemmer. For example, setting FTS_CONFIG to
  pg_catalog.english or pg_catalog.french will override the auto
  detected stemmer.

There's also lot fixes of issues reported by users from the past two
months, here is the complete list of changes:

• Fix return type in function with a single inout parameter and a
  returned type.
• Prevent wrong rewrite of empty as null when a function is used.
  Thanks to Pavel Stehule for the report.
• Add the UUID_FUNCTION configuration directive. By default Ora2Pg
  will convert call to SYS_GUID() Oracle function with a call to
  uuid_generate_v4 from uuid-ossp extension. You can redefined it
  to use the gen_random_uuid function from pgcrypto extension by
  changing the function name. Default to uuid_generate_v4. Thanks
  to sjimmerson for the feature request.
• Add rewrite of queries with simple form of left outer join syntax
  (+) into the ansi form.
• Add new command line option -D | --data_type to allow custom data
  type replacement at command line like in configuration file with
  DATA_TYPE.
• Fix type in ROWNUM replacement expression. Thanks to Pavel Stehule
  for the report.
• Add replacement of SYS_GUID by uuid_generate_v4 and allow custom
  rewriting of RAW type. Thanks to Nicolas Martin for the report.
• Fix missing WHERE clause in ROWNUM replacement with previous patch
  thanks to Pavel Stehule for the report.
• Fix ROWNUM replacement when e sub select is used. Thanks to Pavel
  Stehule for the report.
• Fix wrong syntax in index creation with DROP_INDEXES enabled.
  Thanks to Pave Stehule for the report.
• Remove replacement of substr() by substring() as PostgreSQL have
  the substr() function too. Thanks to Pavel Stehule for the report.
• Move LIMIT replacement for ROWNUM to the end of the query. Thanks
  to Pavel Stehule for the report.
• Fix text default value between parenthesis in table declaration.
  Thanks to Pavel Stehule for the report.
• Fix return type when a function have IN/OUT parameter. Thanks to
  Pavel Stehule for the report.
• Mark uuid type to be exported as text. Thanks to sjimmerson for
  the report.
• Add EXECUTE to open cursor with like "OPEN var1 FOR var2;". Thanks
  to Pavel Stehule for the report.
• Fix replacement of local type ref cursor. Thanks to Pavel Stehule
  for the report.
• Add EXECUTE keyword to OPEN CURSOR ... FOR with dynamic query.
  Thanks to Pavel Stehule for the report.
• Fix case sensitivity issue in FOR .. IN variable declaration
  replacement. Thanks to Pavel Stehule for the report.
• Fix wrong replacement of cast syntax ::. Thanks to Pavel Stehule
  for the report.
• Reactivate numeric cast in call to round(value,n).
• Close main output data file at end of export.
• Add virtual column state in column info report, first stage to
  export those columns as columns with associated trigger.
• Fix unwanted replacement of REGEXP_INSTR. Thanks to Bernard
  Bielecki for the report.
• Allow rewrite of NUMBER(, 0) into bigint or other type instead
  numeric(38), just set DATA_TYPE to NUMBER(,0):bigint. Thanks to
  kuzmaka for the feature request.
• Export partitions indexes into PARTITION_INDEXES_....sql separate
  file named. Thanks to Nicolas Martin for the feature request.
• Fix fatal error when schema CTXSYS does not exists. Thanks to
  Bernard Bielecki for the report.
• Fix missing text value replacement. Thanks to Bernard Bielecki
  for the report.
• Fix type replacement in declare section when the keyword END was
  present into a variable name.
• Export NOT VALIDATED Oracle foreign key and check constraint as
  NOT VALID in PostgreSQL. Thanks to Alexey for the feature request.
• Add object matching of regex 'SYS_.*$' to the default exclusion
  list.
• Fix UTF8 output to file as the open pragma "use open ':utf8';"
  doesn't works in a global context. binmode(':encoding(...)') is
  used on each file descriptor for data output.
• Improve parsing of tables/indexes/constraints/tablespaces DDL from
  file.
• Improve parsing of sequences DDL from file.
• Improve parsing of user defined types DDL from file.
• Export Oracle's TYPE REF CURSOR with a warning as not supported.
• Replace call to plsql_to_plpgsql() in Ora2Pg.pm by a call to new
  function convert_plsql_code().
• Move export of constraints after indexes to be able to use USING
  index in constraint creation without error complaining that index
  does not exists.
• Add "CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS dblink;" before an autonomous
  transaction or "CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS pg_background;".
• Improve parsing of packages DDL from file.
• When a variable in "FOR varname IN" statement is not found in the
  DECLARE bloc, Ora2Pg will automatically add the variable to this
  bloc declared as a RECORD. Thanks to Pavel Stehule for the report.
• Major rewrite of the way Ora2Pg parse PL/SQL to rewrite function
  calls and other PL/SQL to plpgsql replacement. There should not
  be limitation in rewriting when a function contains a sub query
  or an other function call inside his parameters.
• Fix unwanted SELECT to PERFORM transformation inside literal
  strings. Thanks to Pavel Stehule for the report.
• Fix bug in DEFAULT value rewriting. Thanks to Pavel Stehule for
  the report.
• Fix replacement of DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line with RAISE NOTICE.
• Reset global variable storage for each package.
• Improve comment parsing in packages and prevent possible infinite
  loop in global variable replacement.
• Add the REWRITE_OUTER_JOIN configuration directive to be able to
  disable the rewriting of Oracle native syntax (+) into OUTER JOIN
  if it is broken. Default is to try to rewrite simple form of
  right outer join for the moment.
• Export types and cursors declared as global objects in package
  spec header into the main output file for package export. Types
  and cursors declared into the package body are exported into the
  output file of the first function declared in this package.
• Globals variables declared into the package spec header are now
  identified and replaced into the package code with the call to
  user defined custom variable. It works just like globals variables
  declared into the package body.
• Add auto detection of Oracle FTS stemmer and disable FTS_CONFIG
  configuration directive per default. When FTS_CONFIG is set its
  value will overwrite the auto detected value.
• Create full text search configuration when USE_UNACCENT directive
  is enabled using the auto detected stemmer or the one defined in
  FTS_CONFIG. For example:
  CREATE TEXT SEARCH CONFIGURATION fr (COPY = french);
  ALTER TEXT SEARCH CONFIGURATION fr ALTER MAPPING FOR
  hword, hword_part, word WITH unaccent, french_stem;
  CREATE INDEX place_notes_cidx ON places
  USING gin(to_tsvector('fr', place_notes));
• Remove CONTAINS(ABOUT()) from the migration assessment, there no
  additional difficulty to CONTAINS rewrite.
• Add ANYDATA to the migration assessment keyword to detect.
• Allow conversion of CHAR/VARCHAR2 type with precision in DATA_TYPE
  directive. For example it's possible to transform all VARCHAR2(32)
  columns only into PostgreSQL special type uuid by setting:
  DATA_TYPE VARCHAR2(32):uuid
  Thanks to sjimmerson for the feature request.
• Update year in copyrights
• Fix creation of schema when CREATE_SCHEMA+PG_SCHEMA are defined.
• Fix renaming of temporary file when exporting partitions.
• Move MODIFY_TYPE to the type section
• Update documentation about globals variables.
• Add export of Oracle's global variables defined in package. They
  are exported as user defined custom variables and available in
  a session. Oracle variables assignment are exported as call to:
  PERFORM set_config('pkgname.varname', value, false);
  Use of these variable in the code is replaced by:
  current_setting('pkgname.varname')::global_variables_type;
  the variable type is extracted from the pacjkage definition. If
  the variable is a constant or have a default value assigned at
  declaration, ora2pg will create file global_variables.conf with
  the definition to include in postgresql.conf file so that their
  values will already be set at database connection. Note that the
  value can always modified by the user so you can not have exactly
  a constant.
• Fix migration assessment of view.
• Remove call to FROM SYS.DUAL, only FROM DUAL was replaced.
• Replace call to trim into btrim.
• Improve rewrite of DECODE when there is function call inside.
• Add function replace_right_outer_join() to rewrite Oracle (+)
  right outer join.
• Improve view migration assessment.
• Create a FTS section in the configuration file dedicated to FTS
  control.
• Add USE_UNACCENT and USE_LOWER_UNACCENT configuration directives
  to use the unaccent extension with pg_trgm.
• Do not create FTS_INDEXES_* file when there is no Oracle Text
  indexes.
• Update query test score when CONTAINS, SCORE, FUZZY, ABOUT, NEAR
  keyword are found.
• Remove use to setweigth() on single column FTS based indexes.
  Thanks to Adrien Nayrat for the report.
• Update documentation on FTS_INDEX_ONLY with full explanation on
  the Ora2Pg transformation.
• Refactoring ora2pg to not requires any dependency other than the
  Perl DBI module by default. All DBD drivers are now optionals and
  ora2pg will expect to received an Oracle DDL file as input by
  default. This makes easiest packaging or for any distribution that
  can not build a package because of the DBD::Oracle requirement.
  DBD::Oracle, DBD::MySQL and DBD::Pg are still required if you want
  Ora2Pg to migrate your database "on-line" but they are optional
  because Ora2Pg can also convert input DDL file, this is the
  default now. Thanks to Gustavo Panizzo for the feature request and
  the work on Debian packaging.
• Remove String::Random dependency in rpm spec file, it is no used
  even if it was mentioned into a comment.
• Exclude internal Oracle Streams AQ JMS types from the export.
  Thanks to Joanna Xu for the report.
• Fix some other spelling issues. Thanks to Gustavo Panizzo for the
  patch.
• Fix some spelling errors. Thanks to Gustavo Panizzo for the patch.
• Revert patch 697f09d that was breaking encoding with input file
  (-i). Thanks to Gary Evans for the report.
• Add two new configuration directive to control FTS settings,
  FTS_INDEX_ONLY and FTS_CONFIG.