1/SO exception

oracle SO exception is to do with parsing tnsnames.ora and sqlnet.ora, jdbc:oracle:thin:@host:1521:databasesid bypasses these files

2/SQLTRACE for debugging eg finding ora messages for unhandled exceptions:

in sqlnet.ora 
TRACE_UNIQUE_CLIENT=true 
#ie have a seperate trace file for each session 
TRACE_LEVEL_CLIENT = 16 
#16 is the highest trace level (biggest trace files) 0 - lowest 
TRACE_DIRECTORY_CLIENT = d:/totierne/admin/dump 
#where to put the trace file not that you can also trace on the server side ... 
#trace on the server side by replacing CLIENT with SERVER
excerpt from trace file of sqlplus session select notthere from nottable: 

.. 
.. 
nspsend:54 2F CC 01 00 00 00 00  |T/......| 
nspsend:01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |........| 
nspsend:00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |........| 
nspsend:00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |........| 
nspsend:00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |........| 
nspsend:56 2F CC 01 73 65 6C 65  |V/..sele| 
nspsend:63 74 20 6E 6F 74 74 68  |ct notth| 
nspsend:65 72 65 20 66 72 6F 6D  |ere from| 
nspsend:20 6E 6F 74 74 61 62 6C  | nottabl| 
nspsend:65 0A 01 00 00 00 00 00  |e.......| 
nspsend:00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |........| 
.. 
.. 
nsprecv:00 00 00 00 28 4F 52 41  |....(ORA| 
nsprecv:2D 30 30 39 34 32 3A 20  |-00942: | 
nsprecv:74 61 62 6C 65 20 6F 72  |table or| 
nsprecv:20 76 69 65 77 20 64 6F  | view do| 
nsprecv:65 73 20 6E 6F 74 20 65  |es not e| 
nsprecv:78 69 73 74 0A 00 00 00  |xist....| 
nsprecv: normal exit 
nsrdr: got NSPTDA packet 
nsrdr: NSPTDA flags: 0x0 

4/I am always interested in simple tools and methods that make [my] life easier
email me about the simple blindingly obvious modes of working that work for you. totierne at hotN_O_S_P_A_Mmail.com e.g. a command line time stamped log using cygwin/bash on windows simple but useful, called tk.sh run by bash c:\tk.sh writes to e:/totierne/mylog

tail -10 e:/totierne/mylog
if test "m$*" = "m"
then
 while read line 
 do
  if test "$line" = "q"
  then 
   exit
  else
   echo `date '+%d/%m/%y %k:%M:%S '` "$line" >> e:/totierne/mylog
  fi
 done
else
 echo `date '+%d/%m/%y %k:%M:%S '` "$*" >> e:/totierne/mylog
fi

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